


Mightier Still

by meansgirl



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-21
Updated: 2010-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 02:03:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meansgirl/pseuds/meansgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An active ATA gene means that the carrier has access to superpowers. John Sheppard happens to have the gene, and along with a smart aleck sidekick, a doctor, two scientists, and a mysterious commune of super-powered do-gooders, he must face off against an enemy intent on using their powers for evil. AU.<br/>"He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still" -- Lao Tzu</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mightier Still

**Author's Note:**

> [Art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/119394) by [Korilian](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Korilian/pseuds/Korilian); [Mix/Art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/119033) by [jinjur](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jinjurly/pseuds/jinjur) / [gblvr](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gblvr/pseuds/gblvr)

_"Z-100, New York's hit music station! Setting it off this hour with--"_

"AM New York, free AM New York, get your paper, get your paper--"

"And I said to him, look if you want to commute from Jersey every day that's fine but I'm not moving to fucking Hoboken and if you think--"

"Hey buddy you got a dollar?"

"Motherfucker, I'm crossing this street do you not see me crossing this street? I have the god damn right of--"

"Move your van, asshole!"

"I said no onions! I hate onions I don't want this, here--"

"Oh my God, it's the empire state building, look! Mom, look!"

The voices of the city were loud in John's ears as he shifted, trying to find a comfortable way to sit perched several hundred feet in the air on cold cement. He mentally cursed the bony nature of his ass and sighed into the wind that ruffled his hair. He tried to focus on the sound of it.

The noise of the city below was so far from where his feet dangled he shouldn't have been able to hear any of it, perched as he was on top of a skyscraper. But John could hear just about anything from here to the southern tip of Manhattan and all the way up to the edge of Times Square. He would have to concentrate to understand a specific voice or sound, but with no effort at all his ears picked up the din and clang from below as though he was standing in the middle of it.

It was getting late;  John was cold in his t-shirt and jeans even though it was late spring and the weather had been barreling toward summer, all sun and humidity and the stink of New York in eighty degree heat. Past sunset and over a hundred floors up, it was chilly and gusty.

John wasn't ready to go back down yet. He would have to sooner or later, before someone noticed him on top of a skyscraper and mistook him for suicidal, but for now he could pick out what noises he wanted to hear, or ignore them if he felt like it and just enjoy the view. From this spot, the skyline seemed close enough to touch which, for John, it sort of really _was_.

He was just starting to rustle up the desire to haul himself off the cold concrete when he heard something that stood out in all the noise below. He had been focused on the wind, blocking out everything else, but out of nowhere John heard something from down on the streets, a voice so clear the source could have been standing right next to him on the rooftop.

_"Just take the wallet, I don't want it. I'd like to keep all my blood in my veins if it's all the same to -- Hey! Watch it! No -- look, just take the --"_

John considered letting it go. He couldn't help every single endangered person in the city; he'd accepted that a long time ago, but there was something about that voice -- maybe it was out of curiosity, a need to know how a person could sound so snotty while they were getting mugged, or maybe he just wasn't that great at letting these things go. John zeroed in on the voice. It was joined by a few others that sounded gruff and intimidating, threats and sneers and low, humorless chuckles.

John closed his eyes, focused, and stepped off the roof.  


* * *

  
Rodney had no idea where the guy had come from, but he was really glad he showed up because where there had been a blade in Rodney's face ten seconds ago, there was now no blade and the asshole holding it was out cold behind a dumpster. Rodney's apparent savior knocked out the second mugger with an elbow to the nose and turned to take care of the third and last thug only to see his retreating back as he beat it down the alley.

In the silence, Rodney returned to himself with a jolt and realized only a handful of seconds had passed between the out-of-nowhere appearance of his random hero and the moment the second mugger hit the ground. He also realized that seriously, Mr. Hero had appeared out of _nowhere_.

"You okay there, buddy?"

Rodney snapped to attention, realizing Hero Guy was talking to him. "What? Oh. Yes, yes I'm fine. Where the hell did you come from?"

"Um--"

"I mean, not that I don't appreciate the whole not getting stabbed thing but you couldn't have shown up, I don't know, _before_ they took my wallet and scared the living daylights out of me? My life flashed before my eyes! I never believed in that sort of thing but you know, it's an actual thing; it really happens." Rodney could feel himself flushing, knowing he was rambling and being rude and coming off as ungrateful, but that flash of this-is-your-life had really thrown him, and he felt he was allowed a small, contained freak out.

"Listen, buddy --"

"Who are you? You knocked those guys out cold --" Rodney gestured to the two passed-out muggers "-- in about ten seconds. What are you, some kind of well-oiled killing machine?"

"I didn't kill any --"

"Seriously though, where did you come from, and hey, I guess I should ask for your name since you saved my life. Thanks. For saving my life."

Rodney let out his breath, finally stopping long enough to take in Hero's face which, it turned out, was annoyingly blank. After a beat, the guy grinned and his face completely changed. It changed in a such a way that Rodney nearly had to start rambling again to cover for the way that blindingly attractive smile made his lungs forget how to properly draw air.

Before Rodney could start, the guy extended his hand and said, "John Sheppard. Nice to meet you."

Rodney took the hand and shook it, drawing away too fast and shoving his own shaky hands into his pockets. "Dr. Rodney McKay. Sorry I kind of... I get a little... You know."

John Sheppard snorted and shrugged, "No big deal. Glad I could help out."

"Ah, so...you were just walking down a dark, creepy alley and you figured hey, today's a good day for ass-kicking?"

"Not exactly." Sheppard shrugged again, all lanky and loose. "What were _you_ doing in a dark, creepy alley? Death wish? A deep love for the smell of rotting trash behind the Chinese grocery?"

As a matter of fact, Rodney had been reading and walking again and hadn't been paying attention to where he was walking -- again. He'd almost been hit by dozens of cabs that way, and ought to have known better but the utter stupidity of some of his colleagues was just too unbelievable to stop reading for something as time-wasting as the walk from the subway to his apartment. Rodney remembered his briefcase and the papers he'd been carrying and started looking around for them.

While he gathered them from a puddle, wincing at the condition of his brand new leather briefcase, he said, "Look, I'm a very smart man with a very important job and when certain people besmirch the name of physics as grievously as so many of my colleagues have, well, my attention tends to remain focused on their wrongness."

"Uh-huh." Sheppard hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, rocking back on his heels. "Physics?"

"Yes, yes. It would tell you all about it, but it would probably go right over your head. No worries, I don't expect you to feign interest. Saving me from these idiots was enough of a good deed. Hmm, we should probably call the police or something."

"I'll take care of it," said Sheppard. He lifted one shoulder in yet another lazy shrug that both annoyed and fascinated Rodney. How could someone be so nonchalant three minutes after something like that? How could someone move like his bones were made of, of --

Sheppard was talking again and Rodney had missed all of it. "What?"

"I said," Sheppard drawled, slow and careful as though speaking to a child. "You can just head back to wherever you meant to be going. I'm sure you have someone waiting for you to get back home and you've had a rough night."

Rodney snorted. "I have a pigeon-fucking roommate waiting for me, and he's probably still locked in his fancy Columbia lab with no thought for me bleeding out in some alley in Chinatown."

"Pigeon-fucking?"

"Don't ask. I guess I _should_ go. I...I really appreciate the help. I could buy you a coffee. That's not really...I could pay you? As a thank you? What do people usually do to return this kind of favor? Is money even appropriate? Should I offer to give you my number, in case you ever need anything? I'm really only good at physics, so maybe not. Probably most people would drop to their knees and offer you a blow job right now. Or whatever. Not that I wouldn't or _would_ \-- I mean. That's inappropriate, I'm sorry."

Sheppard's eyes widened before he seemed to get his expression back under control, forcing his eyebrows down and his mouth into a bland half-smirk.  "No need to repay me, Dr. McKay. Just get home safe and forget this ever happened."

"Yes. Okay. I'll just...do that."

"Okay."

"Thanks again."

"No problem. Goodnight."

Rodney stood there, clutching his briefcase and wet papers to his chest for just a beat too long before he was able to force himself into action, stuffing the papers in the ruined briefcase and turning to leave.

"Oh hey, McKay."

Rodney stopped and turned back in time to catch his wallet, thrown by Sheppard with a quick, "Heads up!"

He caught the wallet between his free hand and his chest. "Thanks."

Sheppard flicked him a lazy salute and Rodney moved to leave the alley at last. Just before he turned the corner to the street, Rodney realized he might need to stick around. Of _course_ he did -- the police would need his report, maybe even a description for one of those sketch artists. They still had those, right? He turned around, mouth open to say -- something, he didn't know what, he was really thrown off by the physical violence and attractive vigilante -- and froze.

What Rodney saw was the kind of thing that indicated a brain tumor, or a psychological breakdown. He saw only the muggers in the alley, still out cold, and no Sheppard in sight until Rodney, for no apparent reason, looked up. He had a split second to register the fact that Sheppard's feet were landing solidly about three stories up on a rooftop, with no ladder or fire escape or even a dumpster to boost him up in sight. Sheppard was looking right at him, nice-guy expression gone and raw fear in its place.

Rodney couldn't move and apparently Sheppard was similarly frozen because they stood there, Rodney on the ground and Sheppard ( _impossibly_ ) on the roof, staring at each other in mutual shock for what felt like an eternity before Sheppard appeared to come to a decision which involved running away. Rodney felt the world tilt under his feet as Sheppard turned and with a running start, _really impossibly_ , jumped and _flew_ off the rooftop in a speeding blur, disappearing between one blink and the next.  


* * *

  
In his earliest memories, John knew he was different. Not that kind of different, not the "Johnny doesn't play well with the other children" kind of different, though that was kind of true until he got old enough to figure out how to fake sameness and just get along. It was also not the kind of different that had to do with kissing boys either, though that was also true.

No, John was a special, different kind of different. He could hear, feel and smell things other people couldn't. It wasn't that he heard voices or things that weren't there. John could hear a baby crying at the Henderson house four blocks over from his bedroom with the window closed. He could smell the sea a mile away from the beach. If he laid back in the grass and concentrated, John could feel and hear the underground things crawling and slithering below him.

It was really hard for John to get hurt. He was a tough little guy, everyone said. Your typical little boy, a child that loved to get dirty, tumble down hills and climb trees. But when John was eight he climbed the giant oak behind the A&P, playing where he wasn't allowed to be, far from watchful adult eyes. He climbed higher than his mother would ever allow if she could see, and just as she'd always worried he would, John fell. He must have been almost ten feet up and it felt like he hit every branch going down. He'd landed solidly on his head, and he knew in his little boy brain that he should be dead. He should have been the fulfillment of every mother's shouted warning: "You'll break your neck!"

But he wasn't dead and his neck wasn't broken. John was _fine_. He threw himself off that tree and every single one he could get to before the streetlights came on. He never landed on his feet, and he never got hurt.

When he was thirteen, his father moved them to California and John spent a lot of time at the beach. He learned to surf that summer. On days when his mother told him, "Absolutely not, you'll get yourself killed," John spent his time walking up and down the shoreline, picking up shells he thought she would like and chasing fiddler crabs, even though he knew the waves couldn't hurt him.

He found the magic sea glass on one of those days. John had picked up a purple-streaked spiral shell and caught a glimpse of something flat and shiny underneath. He'd dug it out, uncovering a rounded rectangle of opaque, glassy material, and pried it free with his fingers. When John's hand closed around it, the glass filled with blue light and _hummed_ in his palm.

It should have freaked him out. He ought to have dropped it and gone back up the beach to where his mother was probably packing up her blanket and fixing her hat, ready to take him to lunch. Instead, John held it tight and let the subtle vibrations travel up his arm, through his muscles and straight to his brain where, suddenly, he could feel unused synapses, dormant neurons flicking on and buzzing to life. In a flash of a moment, John knew. He knew as sure as his bare feet were planted in the wet sand that if he only thought it, they would leave the ground and he would be flying.

His mother called to him and John shoved the sea glass in his pocket and went to her. He would figure this out later, he decided, not even considering that the thought was crazy. John was special. He could hear and smell and feel too much, and now that some missing or broken connection had been found or repaired, he could also fly. John knew it like he knew his own name.

Later.  


* * *

  
John followed McKay back to his apartment. He kept out of sight, building-jumping the same way he'd found McKay in the first place, and listened to McKay muttering under his breath for the entirety of the six block trip.

 _"Too much coffee, way too much work. Seeing things and losing your mind. Zelenka's right, you need a break. Probably he will steal your research but well, a nervous breakdown isn't going to help you get a Nobel is it? No. People don't fly. That guy did_ not _fly."_

John cursed himself for the umpteenth time. He should have waited for McKay to walk off. He should have walked out of the alley before taking off. John knew better, he did. Maybe it was exhaustion or maybe he was thrown a little off-kilter by the sexual favors thing McKay had mentioned. Either way, he'd really messed up and now McKay knew. Or worse, McKay thought himself in the middle of a psychotic break. Either way, it wasn't good.

John shouldn't have been following the guy, but he was worried. It was a miracle that he had only been seen a handful of times before. Somehow John had managed to be extremely discreet with the flying over the years, probably because he was so well-practiced at hiding things and faking it with just about everything else. He'd been spotted a couple times, sure -- but those incidents had, luckily for John, been fleeting or easily explained away as a trick of the eye.

The thing about Rodney McKay seeing him, the part that was freaking John out, was that McKay was smart and loud-mouthed. The way he had run off at the mouth had been funny, his fumbling thanks a bit insulting but well-meant. John knew he was no social butterfly himself with or without the secrets he carried around with him but McKay might pose a problem. He just didn't seem the type to be discreet about _anything_ , let alone something as bizarre as catching a man flying off the ground and onto a rooftop.

McKay lived in a walk-up on the boundary between Chinatown and Little Italy. John perched on the roof and listened to McKay's footsteps stomping up three floors, punctuated by complaints about stupid tenement buildings and the lack of elevators in them. John chuckled to himself while McKay let himself into his apartment. John heard the meow of a cat and McKay cooing at it with the sort of affection most people showed their children. John wondered what the apartment looked like on the inside. Probably cluttered. Probably full of science books. He wondered where the pigeon-fucking room mate was. He could jump to a building across the street and see in the window, maybe. John dropped that idea; he felt creepy enough without adding straight up voyeurism to his list of tonight's fuck-ups.

He would just stick around for a few minutes, see if McKay called The Enquirer blabbing about real-life Superman or discussed it with the roommate.

A television was clicked on and McKay yakked away at his cat over the noise. Cupboards banged open, the refrigerator was rifled through, the stove clicked and ignited. John forced himself up off his ass. He needed to get home, get a shower and some sleep for the first time in days. Not including McKay, John had stopped seven muggings, an attempted rape and an armed robbery at a bodega in the last two days. The week before that, he'd had a nasty run in with Lucius Lavin and his latest attempt at a cult. John was running on fumes. He was tired and being weird about a victim was a symptom of exhaustion.

He opted for the fire escape instead of dropping off the roof's edge, walking to the subway instead of finding a subtle place to take off. He wasn't supposed to fly when he was all whacked out, Carson's orders.

John caught the 6 train uptown, dozing standing up against the doors, and almost missed his stop.  


* * *

  
John's apartment was a couple blocks off the East River, just shy of a neighborhood which, should it bleed over into his little square of city, would jack the rent up by at least five hundred. For now though, John lived a stone's throw away from a 99 cent store and above a Thai restaurant. It should have been empty, since John lived alone, but before he even got to the front door John knew someone was in his living room, listening to his favorite Cash album on the record player.

"Fuck," he muttered, letting himself in and jogging up the stairs to the second floor. He didn't bother with his keys, and sure enough the lock on his door clicked just as he hit the landing. John opened the door and groaned. "Don't you have anyone else to bother today, Lorne?"

Lorne, the bastard, was stretched out on John's futon, rolling a beer bottle between his palms and humming along to Solitary Man. "Only you, Sheppard. Fight any evil today?"

"No," said John shortly, in no mood to deal with Lorne's questions. "Please go away."

Lorne ignored him, which John expected. John went to the fridge and found the six pack he'd bought before the Lucius incident empty.

"God damn it, Lorne! You drank all my beer!"

"You weren't here to drink it, sir. It was lonely."

"Don't call me sir. Didn't I tell you to go away?"

Lorne sent his beer bottle flying through the kitchen. The cabinet door under the sink swung open and the bottle clanked against the rest of the six pack in the trash can. The door slammed shut while Lorne levered himself off the futon. "You did tell me to go away," he said. "But I heard you scuffled with Lucius the other day. And you didn't call me. If you're going to fight bad guys, you should really call me. Sir."

John forced himself to hold back the growl living in his throat. He kept his back to Lorne and leaned his forehead against the cabinet next to the fridge. "I handled Lucius just fine on my own. He'll be licking his wounds in Yonkers or wherever for the next little while. I called Carson and he dealt with the aftermath. It's done. You can go now."

Lorne hopped up off the futon, swung his arms, cracked his neck and stretched. "Not before we talk about the part where I keep telling you I can _help_ , and you keep ignoring me and going off on your own."

"Lorne." John sighed, turning around and rubbing a hand over his fuzzy eyes. "I have had one hell of a weekend, alright? I stopped this mugging and the victim saw me."

"Well, people see you when you start tossing punks around," said Lorne, illustrating his point with a few mimed punches and ending with a shrug. "It happens. Did he cry? Was he too thankful for you? I can help you with your people skills, you know --"

Annoyed, tired, and stretched way too thin, John slammed his hand down on the counter top and turned on Lorne, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists to keep from throwing something. "He saw me fly, Lorne."

Lorne blinked after a second and sat down. "Oh."

"Yeah, _oh_." John pushed off the counter, which sent the back of his head right into the fridge. He gave it another thunk, sending a magnet flying off and to the floor.

Lorne rubbed his hands against his jeans, sucking air through his teeth and shaking his head. "Well, that's not good."

"I'm aware of that," John bit out. He rescued the fallen magnet off the floor and rubbed at the back of his head. "Ow."

"Hey." Lorne opened his hands in a placating gesture, "maybe it's not so bad?"

"The guy thinks he's losing it. I just freaked him out in a big way."

"Yeah well, he won't see any other flying men and he'll get over it. It'll be fine."

Figuring that line of conversation was better off dead, and since John had known before he even made it up to his floor that Lorne wasn't going to leave, he decided he may as well give up on getting rid of him. He abandoned the kitchen and dropped down on the other end of the couch.

"I guess so," he muttered in Lorne's direction. "Forget it. What have you been up to since the last time I kicked you out of my apartment?"

Lorne grinned, transitioning seamlessly to the new topic. "I stopped a few car crashes and a ferry accident. I also made some jackass who wouldn't quit holding the doors open fall out of the subway. Onto the platform, not the tracks. Pretty good couple of days."

"Fighting the good fight, then," John deadpanned.

Lorne hmm-ed in agreement. "What are we gonna do about Lucius?"

"Nothing for now," John replied. "He was doing low-level shit this time, getting people to pay tithing in exchange for some b.s. enlightenment. Made 'em drink kool aid but not the poison kind, so that's nice. He had security and a couple of his followers got caught in crossfire. Carson called, they're all fine."

John remembered, now that Lorne brought it up, that his gun was still hidden in an ankle strap under his jeans. He bent to unstrap it, sighing at the loss of weight and tossed it on the coffee table.

"Good." Lorne stretched his legs and propped his feet up far from the gun. "So what happened with this mugging guy? Before you revealed your super secret identity to him, I mean."

John rolled his eyes and put his own feet up, positioning his legs so the gun was between them and within John's reach should they need it. They wouldn't but, hey, training."I'll tell you about it if you go out and buy me more beer after."

"Deal."  


* * *

  
Rodney didn't see his roommate until the next day at work, when he tracked Zelenka down in the cafe three floors down from the labs. The increased wildness of Radek's flyaway hair indicated that he'd spent the night on the cot in his office.

"You would not believe the night I had," Rodney announced, dropping his tray of food on top of the papers Radek was skimming.

"Rodney, I missed you last night. You went home early."

"As well I should have. I am clearly suffering from exhaustion. I may have hallucinated last night."

Radek pushed the tray off his papers and didn't bother looking up when he said, "I think perhaps radiation--"

"Oh, shut it already. It's not radiation poisoning. Why don't you just go back up to your fancy lab and leave me to eat in peace?"

Zelenka looked up. "I was here first. Also, my lab is no fancier than yours. You have a perfectly good lab right down the hall. I can hear your shouting from my desk."

"Your lab is better," Rodney muttered. He dug into his breakfast bowl. He chewed a bite of sausage and decided that yes, he should tell Zelenka about the whole mugging thing. It was Zelenka, after all, who always eventually came around to Rodney's most out-there ideas. "Seriously Radek, I saw a flying man."

"A flying man?"

"Yes. I was being mugged --"

Radek interrupted with one of his Czech expletives and Rodney waved off his look of concern with his fork. A bit of egg flew off and onto the floor.

"That's not the point. This guy saved me from the punks who were about to knife me. I could be dead, you know. You wouldn't've even noticed, and my cat would've starved while you stole all my work and slept in your lab every night."

"Rodney," said Radek gravely. "Please do not ever die in a mugging. I don't want to take care of your beastly cat and I would have no one to interrupt my quiet reading time. Back to this flying man?"

"Right. So, the guy who saved me from the muggers pretty much came out of thin air and beat the hell out of them. Then he flew. He flew from the ground to a rooftop, just like --" Rodney snapped, "-- that."

"Right," Radek drew the word out and steepled his fingers in front of him, leveling Rodney with a skeptical look over his glasses. "Perhaps you should make an appointment --"

"Radek, look. I know I said it was exhaustion but it's not, okay? I saw that guy fly. I saw it. I finished two doctorates before the age of twenty five. I know exhaustion. I know hallucinations. This was real. I saw it."

He _had_ seen it, hadn't he? Rodney had been up most of the night, tossing and turning in his bed, trying to convince himself that he hadn't seen a man land flat on his feet on a rooftop. By _flying_. But he had, he really had seen it. Rodney refused to consider that this was a trick of his mind, because his mind wasn't built like that. He was a genius, after all. Nevermind that geniuses were often thought to be nuts. Rodney liked to think that was mostly eccentricity, which he had in spades. What he was not was crazy.

Radek made a derisive noise. "Listen to yourself. You are a _scientist_ , Rodney, and what you claim to have seen is physically impossible. Physics, Rodney! Unless this man wore a jet pack--which i sincerely doubt--there is no _possible_ way you saw this. It is. Not. Possible."

"Maybe it is impossible." Rodney sighed, slumping back in his chair and pushing his half-full tray away, "But maybe it's not. Maybe I can find him."

Radek rolled his eyes. "Rodney, trying to find a random man whose name you don't--"

"I know his name; it's John Sheppard."

"You remember his name?"

"Oh course I do, he _flew_!"

"It took you three years to remember my name, Rodney. We had been sharing the apartment for six months before you got it right!"

"Can you fly?"

"No."

"Well, there you go."  


* * *

  
A hundred blocks downtown from Rodney and Radek's labs, Dr. Carson Beckett felt a migraine coming on. He had grown accustomed to the pounding pain between his temples turning up along with Evan Lorne and John Sheppard. In fact, Carson's head seemed to have a Pavlovian connection to the sound of their voices. He had taken to naming the headaches after his favorite Sheppard and Lorne emergencies. This one was called "Too Stupid to Move Out of the Way."

"He whacked himself in the head with a tire," Sheppard was saying from where he sat on Carson's windowsill. Carson's favorite potted plant was teetering dangerously close to the edge and with each swing of John's feet, the pot jiggled a little more.

Carson rescued his plant and placed it on his desk, shoving Evan off of it while he was at it. "Off my desk please, thank you."

"It's only a little bit bad," Lorne insisted, aiming for casual dismissal. The blood covering the left side of his face rather ruined the effect.

Carson tsked, grabbing Lorne's chin to hold his face still in order to get a better look at the gash. "That needs stitches."

Lorne groaned, jerking his head away. "Stitches? Carson, no! I came here for some of that --" He wiggled his fingers in Carson's face. "Special Beckett healing."

"I'll not waste valuable energy on something that needs three stitches and a band-aid."

Sheppard snorted. "Energy. It would take you two blinks to do it."

"Even so, perhaps the pain of healing will remind this one to duck next time."

Lorne made a noise of protest, "Hey, I saved four people today. That tire was flying straight for a bunch of tourists and I made it detour."

"Yeah," Sheppard muttered, "Right into your own head."

"Hey Sheppard," Lorne said, his usual nice-guy tone overlaid with a hint of nasty retribution, "Did you tell Carson about the scientist you're stalking?"

Carson raised an eyebrow in John's direction. "He did not tell me, as a matter of fact."

"That's because there's nothing to tell," John insisted, almost through his teeth. He smiled, baring them at Lorne. "Maybe you should just focus on your gaping head wound, _Evan_."

"I'm a multi-tasker. I'll tell Carson all about it while he fixes my face." Lorne turned and grinned over his shoulder at Carson, "You're going to do it, right Doc? Don't pass me off to some intern or nurse or whatever."

"Wouldn't dream of it. You have gossip on the Lone Ranger here. Please, do tell."  


* * *

  
Lorne had always known about his own powers. His parents told him when he was five that he was a little "different" from the other kids, but he had already figured it out by then. None of the other kids could pull the pretty girl's pigtails from across the playground _with their mind_.

Specialness ran in Evan's family. His grandmother on his mother's side was a clairvoyant. Mostly she read tarot and palms in a little shop in San Francisco, never telling the people who came and paid five dollars much more other than "A tall man is in your future." or "Avoiding that Thai place down the street for the next few days would be a good idea." The big things she saw she warned people for free, if she could get in touch with them in time.

Evan's mother was strong. She lifted a car off of Evan when he was small and a station wagon backing out of a space didn't see him, knocked him over and pinned his leg under the back tire. The cops had figured adrenaline rush. Evan, who had been too surprised by the pain of having his femur broken to get the car off himself, had shared a secret smile with his mother behind the paramedic's back.

Lorne had a support system at home. He had someone to help him keep his "special abilities" hidden, how to be ethical in their use, how to get by in life when you're different.

When Evan met John Sheppard during his first tour in Iraq, Sheppard was about as interested in Lorne as he was in anything other than flying and fast things--which is to say, not interested at all.

Evan never could say what drew him to Sheppard. The guy was kind of a jerk. His teammates loved him, CO's couldn't stand him, and guys outside of Sheppard's circle didn't get him, thought he was a cocky bastard with an attitude problem, a fag, a spoiled rich boy, or a combination of all three. Lorne, for reasons he didn't really get at the time, wanted to be his friend. There was something about Sheppard that was special--maybe not special like Evan was special, but there was _something_.

Sheppard outranked Evan though, so getting the guy to talk to him was difficult.

Lorne finished his tour before Sheppard. He heard a few months later that Sheppard had been tossed out of the military by the gleeful brass that had always hated his guts. There was only one guy Lorne kept in touch with who knew Sheppard a little bit too.

"What the hell happened, Markham?" Evan had asked over the phone, sitting in his mother's living room in San Francisco with the cordless pressed to his ear and her corgi passed out in his lap.

"He ignored orders and tried to run a rescue for one of his men. Mitch and Dex had gone down a few weeks before, so I guess Sheppard was pretty messed up about it. You know how they were. He didn't save that other guy either, what was his name--"

"Holland?"

"Yeah, yeah, knew it was a country or something. Anyway, Holland was DOA, Sheppard is out. That's all I know."

"Jesus." Lorne sighed. The corgi perked up at his name and Lorne snorted. "Not you, the other one."

"What?" Markham sounded impatient on the other line.

"Nothing, nothing. So where's Sheppard now?"

"I don't know. The guy's weird, he seems like the type to fuck off to a kibbutz somewhere, go on a finding-himself journey paid for by his trust fund. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah, Markham. I know what you mean."

"One of my drunkest nights involved Sheppard, did you know that?"

Lorne rolled his eyes. "I didn't know that, what happened? Drunker than that time in Stuttgart?"

"Oh yeah, way drunker. One of the moonshine nights, you know? One of the guys smuggled in some home brew and I got shitfaced with Stackhouse and a bunch of the other guys. I had to take a piss so I go stumbling out to the latrines, right? So I get lost on my way there, I don't know how. Anyway I ended up somewhere past the latrines and I decide I'm gonna whip it out and just water the desert a bit. And I'm standing there with my dick in my hand and I swear to God I looked up and I saw something in the sky. You remember how the sky looked over there at night."

"Clear as crystal," Evan murmured. Jesus the corgi snuffled in his lap.

"Yeah, and I saw something. And it was getting closer and closer and god damn it, it was Sheppard!"

"Like in a chopper? You telling me he hijacked a government helicopter for a late night joyride? You're full of shit."

"No, not like that. I mean, _it was Sheppard_. Flying. Like fucking Superman or something. He got closer and closer and then he was right there, almost dive bombing me!"

"And then what happened?"

"Man, I woke up to a sunburned dick and a mouthful of sand. I must've passed out right there. I told the guys about it, and they laughed their asses off. I guess that moonshine really tripped me out. I was seeing things, you know?"

"Yeah...yeah, I know."

Lorne, as a matter of fact, did not know anything but he did suspect a few things. "Hey Markham, I gotta go."  


* * *

  
John had not been stalking any scientists, no matter what Lorne said. One stupid Google search did not equal stalking, and he'd had to have the "Stay Off My Laptop" conversation with Lorne again. He had just followed McKay a little. That was all.

So what if he had kind of started to like McKay. He had good taste in movies, as evidenced by last week's Blockbuster trip. He frequented the good coffee shops, not Starbucks, and had an appreciation for banana nut muffins that John could relate to. He had a weird relationship with his cat, and talked to it as though speaking to a particularly bright child, but John was getting the impression McKay was just kind of lonely.

The roommate was never around when John thought to drop in on McKay's rooftop and no one was ever with him at lunch or picking up takeout for dinner. John didn't feel bad for the guy. He felt bad for himself, actually, because if McKay was lonely what did that make John, the guy who silently followed him in his spare time? He couldn't even convince himself that he was waiting for McKay to spill the beans. The time for that was long gone, and now John was just wasting time and rapidly losing focus.

He would stop following McKay. Definitely. Soon.

"He's going to catch you spying," Lorne remarked casually on the subway two weeks after the initial incident. "And then you're going to do one of two things."

"Please stop talking."

John was pointedly closed his eyes and let his head knock back against the train window. The vibrations didn't exactly feel good but maybe they would drown out his unwanted companion's voice.

Lorne ignored the fact that John was ignoring him. "You're either going to talk to him and freak him out, or you're going to freak him out just being you, skulking around his apartment like some kind of pervert, and he's going to call the cops. And then we're going to have to deal with Sumner."

At this, John opened his eyes and said, "Don't even say that. That's a jinx, Lorne, and now you gotta stick a needle in your eye."

"What?"

"To get rid of the jinx."

"Right. Sheppard, you have to stop stalking this guy. Right now. I think you need to get more sleep, too. I'm just saying."

John smiled at the artsy 20-something who had apparently taken notice of their conversation. She narrowed her eyes and seemed to be turning up her ipod to drown them out. John really wished he had an ipod, because then he could listen to Cash instead of Lorne.

"I'm not stalking anyone, but thank you for the advice. This is my stop -- don't follow me."

Lorne didn't, which thrilled John to no end. He was free to spend the next hour or so loitering around the Columbia campus, without his boy wonder sidekick whining in his ear about how pointless it was.

College campuses filled John with nostalgia for his days at the academy, then later at MIT. Especially now, in the spring, with so many seniors about to graduate trying to survive their final exams. He remembered what that was like, the late hours, the coffee, the cramps in his fingers from all that writing. He could spot a grad student from a mile away, and a post-doc from even further. He had been convinced when he was in grad school that professors could teleport or morph into bats, because it seemed like he rarely if ever caught sight of one strolling through the main drags of the campus amid the fresh faced undergrads, zombified grad students and distracted researchers.

John assumed he just wasn't paying enough attention back then. He'd had to practice constant vigilance at the Academy where his teachers were also commanding officers, but at MIT everyone sort of melted together. He barely remembered what most of his professors had looked like there. It took him about three minutes to spot Dr. Rodney McKay, professor of Physics, making his way down the sidewalk, pushing through throngs of students without looking up from his papers.

"Target locked," John muttered to himself. And he hadn't even had to employ his first-tier people-watching technique, which had been to hunker down under a tree or on a bench, hidden behind the tattered copy of War and Peace currently tucked in his back pocket. Probably just as well; he had a schedule and if McKay had taken a while to show up, John might have been forced to read a few pages and that would throw the whole thing off.

John waited for McKay to pass him, counted to ten, then followed.  


* * *

  
"I am being followed."

Radek looked up from his computer screen to scowl at Rodney's intrusion. "I am not here. My office door says so."

"Everyone knows you're only in your office when the sign on the door says you aren't! That's not the point!" Rodney flung his arms out and threw himself down in one of the chairs across from Radek's desk.

"Then what is the point?" Radek demanded, trying to be stern but knowing he would listen to whatever ridiculous conspiracy theory Rodney was about to lay out for him. Still, it was important not to encourage Rodney by showing interest. "I'm busy. Please have a fit somewhere else."

"I am not having a fit," Rodney groaned. "I said I am _being followed_."

Radek closed his laptop. "Is this about the--" he made air-quotes with his fingers, " _Russian spies_?"

"Don't mock me," Rodney sneered. "I'll have you know that --"

"Rodney! Get to the point?"

"The flying man has found me and now he is stalking me!"

Radek's formulation of an appropriate response to such an insane statement was interrupted by a tapping at the door to his office, which sent Rodney flying out of his chair.

"Oh god, he's come to kill me!"

"Your paranoia concerns me," Radek commented, before calling out, "Come in, whoever you are!"

The door opened a bit and a dreadlocked head poked its way in. "Got a minute, Dr. Zelenka?"

Radek smiled, "In a moment, Ronon. Give me a minute to call an ambulance for Dr. McKay and I will be right with you."

Ronon's eyes shifted to Rodney, who was pressed flat against the far wall of the office. "What's wrong with him?"

Rodney pushed off the wall, and Radek saw potential for a verbal hurricane. "I--"

"Extended radiation exposure has melted most of his brain," he told Ronon, dry as bone, though he could feel hysterical laughter threatening to push its way up his throat, which ten minutes in Rodney's presence could sometimes inspire. He forced it into a smile for Ronon's benefit. "Give us a moment."

With a grunt, Ronon backed out of the room and shut the door with a click. Rodney glared in Radek's general direction and returned to his chair. "Since when do they admit yetis to ivy league schools?"

Radek rolled his eyes. "Ronon is auditing my calculus class."

Radek's willingness to teach two-hundred-level math was usually one of Rodney's favorite topics on which to express his scorn. Instead, he wrinkled his nose and said "He looks like an English major."

"Really?" Radek rolled his eyes. "I hadn't noticed."

"It's the hair."

"Well," Radek pretended to tidy his desk. "You are wrong. He is a philosophy major."

Rodney made a noise of disgust. "That's even worse."

"Get out of my office, Rodney."

"What about my stalker?"

"Out."

"But--"

Radek picked up his stapler, winding back his arm for a pitch. Rodney hopped out of the chair and backed to the door.

"Fine!" He squawked, holding up his arm to ward off a stapler attack. "You violent freak, I'm going!"

"Do not test me, you know what happened last time --"

"Yes and thank you for _that_ scar."

"Rodney."

As Radek had hoped, Rodney's fear of a Swingline-shaped imprint on his face carried him out the door with a quickness. He watched Rodney brush past Ronon and disappear down the hall before waving Ronon in.

"So," Radek began. "Let's talk limits."  


* * *

  
"Are you here to kill me?"

John jerked and spun at the voice, nearly knocking McKay over with a wild arm. "Jesus! How did you sneak up on me?"

"You were fairly intent on whatever that is." McKay said, gesturing at the thick book in John's hands.

John recovered from his shock quickly. He would have to wait till later to examine how someone with enhanced senses could manage to get so distracted that even McKay's bull-in-a-china-shop grace escaped his notice. For now, he had to focus on the issue at hand. John dropped the book to his side, not wanting McKay to see that it was a schedule of classes in session that semester. His thumb held his place at PHYS 440, MW 3:00, McKay, M.R.

"Are you here to kill me?" McKay repeated, crossing his arms protectively over his chest.

John startled again. "Kill you?"

"Because I..." Rodney glanced around, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Because I know your secret."

John's eyebrows shot up, "My...Wait. You don't --"

"Think I'm losing it? No. Okay, maybe a little. I am one hundred percent sure I saw what I saw."

"Which would be..."

McKay made a frustrated noise at him, "You can," He flapped his arms a bit like wings, "You know!"

John couldn't hold back a smirk. He flapped his arms back, and later would wonder what possessed him to utter the words that came out of his mouth next. "Yeah. Yes I can, and you saw it. I've been following you for a week."

"You've been --"

"Stalking you, pretty much." John winced. "Sorry. I shouldn't have. It's just--"

McKay was looking at him expectantly, tilted forward, blue eyes searching John's face while John searched his brain for a way to finish that sentence.

"It's just that you're...interesting."

At this, McKay straightened. "I'm _interesting_."

"Yeah, McKay. You are."

"Is this a weird come on?" McKay seemed torn between leaning closer and backing away; the resulting bob-and-weave made John nervous. "I'm not sure I understand --"

Before John could say anything, a voice called out from a distance. "Rodney!"

John caught sight of a man walking toward them, waving to get McKay's attention. Rodney saw him too and sighed. "It's Zelenka. Any chance you could fly in front of him so he'll stop trying to check me into a psych ward?"

John's old friend panic gripped his lungs for a moment. "You _told_ \--"

"Well he didn't believe me, did he! Shut up, he's almost over here."

The man jogged up to them, adjusting his glasses and shaking flyaway hair out of his face. "Rodney. I wanted to -- Oh, hello."

John waved awkwardly, "Hi."

There was a long pause while Zelenka waited for Rodney to introduce them, Rodney ignored him and whistled to himself, and John wished he could turn and run without seeming like even more of a complete nutcase. Zelenka finally spoke. "Rodney, stop whistling. It does not make you look casual, it makes you look deranged. Who is your friend?"

Rodney pretended to be surprised to see John standing there at all. "Oh, him? He's...um. He's just this guy. Named John. John, this is Dr. Zelenka, my colleague, roommate and the bane of my existence."

"Oh," John extended his hand. "So you're the, uh, what was it? Pigeon-fucker?"

Zelenka blinked, but didn't look all that surprised. Rodney flushed red and shook his head, throwing his hands up in a _stop right there_ gesture. "Yes, yes, that's him. Look Radek, I'm busy--"

"I just wanted to ask you --"

"Sheppard!"

John closed his eyes and told himself that wasn't Lorne's voice coming from behind him, that those weren't Lorne's boots slapping against the sidewalk as he jogged up. He opened his eyes and turned. "Fuck," he muttered.

"Hey!" Lorne greeted, "I see you're talking to Dr. McKay. That's a change of pace, huh?"

"Excuse me," Rodney snapped. "Who are you?"

John groaned. "He's just this guy named Lorne."

"Oh, ha ha very ha," Rodney retorted. "Great. Nice to meet you, this is Zelenka. Look, why don't you two chat while we --"

McKay shoved Zelenka toward Lorne, grabbed Sheppard by the elbow and dragged him down the sidewalk a few yards. Remarkably, Lorne and Zelenka didn't follow them but stared after them then at each other, twin expressions of exasperation on their faces.

"Listen, it's not that I object to being manhandled as a general rule --"

"Oh shut _up_ ," Rodney cut him off. "Look, I think we should discuss the stalking and the flying, but not here. For one thing, my students might be around and they might think I have friends, and once they think that, my reputation as an evil robot built to torture them is out the window. I just can't afford that."

John smirked, "You're kind of funny, McKay."

"Yeah, I'm hilarious. Anyway, can we meet? Later?"

John looked over McKay's shoulder to check on Lorne. His unwanted sidekick was talking animatedly to McKay's frazzled roommate. He tried to ignore that and focus on McKay's question. His gut wanted him to say no; to give McKay the brush-off and stop this before it escalated even more. But something else was overriding his gut instinct and making him agree, saying "Yeah. Okay, I... guess that would be okay."

"Who is that guy, anyway?" McKay demanded, his gaze following John's.

"Just my faithful sidekick." John replied blandly.

"Can he fly, too?"

John sighed. This was going to be difficult, and not just because he had never actually tried to explain himself, Lorne, Beckett and their abilities to anyone. But he was going to explain it to McKay for reasons he didn't quite understand -- just not this way. "We'll talk about that later. I'll meet you at your place at eight. Okay?"

"My place? How do you -- Oh. Right. Stalking. That's really creepy, you know."

"I know," John shrugged, "Sorry again. Let's go separate those two before Lorne talks your friend's ear off."  


* * *

  
"I wasn't following you, you know."

John ignored Lorne while he dug his keys out of his pocket. He had the key in front of the lock when the thing tumbled and clicked open. He shot a dirty look over his shoulder at Lorne. "Don't use your brain to get into my place, it freaks me out."

"Seriously, I wasn't following you. I got a call from my grandma, and I thought you might want to know about it, considering her latest vision included you."

John pushed open the door to his apartment and tossed the keys on the breakfast bar. "I'm assuming I'm not it any immediate danger, since you waited this long to bring it up."

Lorne floated the remote off the coffee table and into his hand, fell back onto John's couch and flicked on the TV. "No, nothing immediate. But Lucius is up to something. This one wasn't too big on the details, she told me, but it's definitely Lucius, and someone we've never seen before."

"New player?"

"Maybe. Maybe it was Radek or McKay, I'll have to get a description from her tomorrow."

"Who the hell is Radek?" John leaned in the doorway of the kitchen, beer in hand.

"You really suck with people, you know that? Radek is McKay's friend, the guy we met twenty minutes ago, you anti-social freak of nature."

"Don't talk to your superiors like that, Lorne." John tossed over his shoulder on the way down the hall to his bedroom.

"Hey, wait!" Lorne hopped up off the couch. "Don't you want to hear more?"

Too irritated to care, John snapped. "Am I gonna die tonight? Tomorrow?"

"Well... no, not that I'm aware of."

"Good. I'm taking a shower and changing out of these clothes, then I'm going to visit McKay. You can see yourself out and we'll discuss this tomorrow. Dismissed, soldier."

John didn't have to turn around to know that Lorne was flipping him the bird; he could just sense it.  


* * *

  
Rodney paced the sidewalk in front of his building, having just escaped Radek's endless questions concerning "the flying man." He probably shouldn't have given in and told Radek that the guy from earlier happened to be the same guy who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he only had so much self-control and he'd used a lot of it up during that little scene on campus earlier.

He was getting tired of pacing and was debating going back inside to watch Radek read or feed his pigeons or whatever, when a cab pulled up and Sheppard, doing his best James Dean impression in black and faded denim, climbed out of it.

"You're always wearing black," Rodney blurted once Sheppard finished paying the cabbie and the car pulled away.

Sheppard glanced down at his jeans and black t-shirt and shrugged. "I guess so. Wanna walk?"

"You want to take a walk?" Rodney said, skeptical. It had occurred to him more than once that Sheppard might be a complete psychopath. He had a brief flash of his own body floating in the East or Hudson, to be found by some dock worker weeks from now, fish-bitten and unrecognizable. They would have to go off dental records. Rodney's sister might not even come to his funeral. Through the brief rush of fear and apprehension, Rodney realized Sheppard was speaking.

"Nice night for it. Come on," said Sheppard, then he shoved his hands in his pockets and started down the block at a leisurely pace. Rodney hesitated for a moment before following, pushing his own hands in his pockets and wishing he carried something useful in them, like pepper spray or throwing stars.

"So...um. What are we supposed to talk about?" Rodney ventured once the silence became too much and they had traveled a block or so without speaking. Sheppard shrugged, glancing over at him with a slick smirk which was not really attractive -- more off-putting than anything -- though it was obviously a well-practiced expression.

"You're the one who wanted to meet tonight," Sheppard drawled. "You pick the topic of conversation."

"You're the one who was stalking me! Forgive me if I'd sort of like to know why."

Rodney stopped walking so he could gesture with his hands as effectively as possible. Sheppard stopped too, leaning back from Rodney ever so slightly as the tirade continued with more hand waving.

"I mean, I googled you! I found nothing. Well, I found lots of John Sheppards, but you are definitely not an oral surgeon living in Idaho or an eighty year old chess enthusiast from Queens. I couldn't find any John Sheppard that could be you, which is weird. Pretty much everyone can be found in one way or another just using a simple search engine. I considered hacking the DMV but then you showed up at my job, which hello--how creepy is that? But the point is, it makes sense for _me_ to stalk _you_ , what with you defying the laws of physics in front of me. But why, seriously _why_ would you follow me?"

Sheppard sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while pretending to look at the fingernails on the other. "I don't know," he said, almost too low to be heard over the city noise around them. "You're kind of an interesting guy, McKay. I googled you too, you know."

Rodney sputtered, "See, that's just proof that you're a stalker! Is that how you figured out where I work?"

"Googling isn't stalking! You just said you ran a search on me!"

Rodney waved this away. "Whatever. That doesn't answer my question."

Sheppard looked away, shuffling his feet and staring down at the stained sidewalk beneath them. "No. I sort of just followed you around a little bit. I googled you after I... you know, saw where you were going. I got curious."

"Well I suppose you could have just rifled through my trash, stolen my mail." Rodney snapped. "What's a little more invasion of privacy?"

Sheppard looked up finally, his face scrunched up in annoyance. "I'm not actually a stalker, McKay. I didn't break into your place, didn't go into your office or your classrooms."

"Oh, but it sounds like you thought about it!"

"Well. Maybe a little bit, and yeah that's kind of sketchy. I admit that. I am aware of that. It's not like Lorne and Beckett didn't tell me what I creep I was being every chance they got. I just...I don't know. Can we go back to the walking now? I promise not to mug you or kidnap you or whatever it is you think I'm going to do."

After that truly impressive string of speech, Sheppard looked a little exhausted. Rodney decided to take pity on him. "I don't really think you're going to do any of that. I figure you would've done it already if you were going to. You're not good with people, are you?"

"No," Sheppard sighed. "Not really."

"Well. Neither am I. This should be fun. Let's walk."  


* * *

  
John became aware of the scope of his abilities two decades before he met Dr. Rodney McKay, Ph.D. Ph.D. but up until that point he hadn't ever talked about it with anyone other than Lorne and Beckett. He had never intentionally let someone see him fly, had never taken another person by the hand and showed them the sky up close and personal. He had also never felt the need to use his abilities to protect any specific person for any reason.

He used the powers to help people, even before he met Beckett and learned that they were some sort of genetically determined birthright, because it felt like the right thing to do. John had joined the military out of an urge to protect people, but it wasn't what he thought it would be. Hiding his abilities was second nature to him, but actively ignoring them while he watched other soldiers and innocent people die nearly ripped him apart.  So after his discharge he decided to focus on helping. He couldn't help everyone, he knew that, so he never tried. He just did what he could with what he had won in the genetic lottery, and tried not to think about or forge relationships with those people whose lives he saved.

This was different. He took McKay to the edge of the city along the Hudson, looked around to make sure no one was around, and extended his hand. "Wanna go for a spin?"

McKay opened and closed his mouth like a fish a couple of times. "You mean --"

"Sure. Why not, right?"

"Well. I think you should explain first."

John knitted his eyebrows together. "I did. Genes, powers, very rare."

"No, not that." Rodney waved his hand. "I understood all of that. Of course I did, I'm a genius after all. I mean...when you fly. Is it like...like Superman? A feat of strength? What makes you fly?"

"Good question." said John. "It's not like Superman. It's like...it's kind of like magic."

McKay gaped at him. "Seriously, that's all you can come up with? Magic?"

John shrugged. "Pretty much. Watch."

He locked eyes with McKay and raised his arms, palms flat and facing out. He breathed in, and his feet left the ground. He let himself go up, up, up, just a couple of feet off the bricks, then held there in a hover. "See?" He asked, "Kind of like a magic trick."

Rodney hmm-ed, staring at the gap between the soles of John's sneakers and the ground for long moment before his eyes traveled up, his neck craning so he could look up at John's grinning face . "That is extremely unsettling."

"So?"

"So, what?"

John grinned. "Did you want to go for a little ride?"

McKay flushed and his hands fidgeted at his sides. "I...I really, really do but it's not exactly the safest thing in the world, is it?"

"McKay, I promise not to drop you." John said, and held out his hand again. McKay hesitated, but only for a moment, before taking it. His hand was dry and warm in John's. John hauled him up easily, getting McKay up off the ground and tucked safely against his side in one move.

"I thought you said it wasn't like Superman," McKay gasped, looking down at his own dangling feet.

"I said I didn't fly like Superman flies. I am kind of freakishly strong. Comes with the package, I guess."

McKay just made a strangled noise and gripped John's arm, one hand fisted tightly in John's t-shirt.

"Ease up, McKay, I've got you." he said, and without warning, took off into the night sky.  


* * *

  
"Where are we?" Rodney breathed. Beside him, Sheppard dropped down to the ground in a lazy sprawl.

"The palisades," Sheppard said. "Sit down and stay awhile, McKay."

Rodney sat down -- carefully, because they were literally on the edge of a cliff and while Rodney wasn't afraid of heights (if he was, he would've passed out halfway there) he didn't trust his own balance that much. The cliffs overlooked the river, and from there he could see the George Washington bridge, its lights twinkling, and the vague halo of Manhattan in the distance. "This is -- Well, I suppose it's _nice_."

Sheppard snorted. "Yeah, it's pretty nice."

"I mean, I had no idea. We're in New Jersey, right? Who knew Jersey could be nice?"

Sheppard mumbled something that sounded like agreement.

Rodney leaned back on his hands. "I stayed at a hotel on a cliff, once. I was on vacation. I don't really take vacations, but I took one a few years ago because my boss kind of made me."

"Why don't you take vacations?" Sheppard asked, lazy and sprawled inches away from Rodney's thigh.

"I work," Rodney said. "And... I have less money than I used to. I, uh, I'm well paid I suppose you could say. But my parents died and left a mountain of debt which I had to deal with. My sister wanted to help but I wouldn't let her. So I don't go away much, and I share that place with Radek. It's almost all paid off which, God, finally."

Sheppard remained silent as Rodney rambled on. "I took the job at Columbia because Radek called me and offered it. I'm good, really good, and I could be making ridiculous amounts of money working for the governments of pretty much all the major world powers, but I kind of -- I pissed some people off, so. Here I am."

"Huh."

"Yeah, I don't know why I'm telling you, because you probably don't want to hear it."

"Hey, I told you about my personal drama. Or whatever."

Rodney laughed at that. "Personal drama? That's what you call--" he waved a hand to encompass Sheppard from head to toe. "That?"

"Well. Yeah. So, your sister. Where does she live?"

"Canada," Rodney sighed. "Vancouver, specifically. With her English professor husband and my niece, Madison. We don't talk much. I kind of pissed her off too."

There was a lengthy pause, more of a lull, during which Sheppard shifted so he was sitting up, head and shoulders level with Rodney's.

"What about you?" asked Rodney. "Are you from the city? Your family?"

"No. I tend to piss people off too. My parents are both gone. I do have a brother, a couple of nephews, but... "

Rodney nodded. "Families."

"Families," John agreed.

They sat in silence for another long moment. Rodney sighed. "What's it like? Flying, the super senses, that stuff?"

"Well you know what the flying is like."

"No, I mean...what does it feel like for _you_."

Sheppard smiled, then, a honest to God smile which, inexplicably, made Rodney want to blush.

"It's the best," Sheppard said. "Flying is the best feeling there is. As for the other stuff it's... hard. Sometimes it takes away from the rush of flying because it means I have to decide what to hear and what not to hear, when to help and when to let it go. It means responsibility. If you could hear and smell and feel every bad thing happening around you, could you ignore it?"

"I don't know. Do you, ever?"

"Sometimes. Kind of have to. I keep my ears open as much as I can, and I do what I can before I have to pass out."

"That sounds exhausting."

Sheppard sighed. "Yeah, and then there's... other people like me."

"There are others?" Rodney nearly hopped to his feet, but Sheppard's look kept him down. Rodney tried not to let out the stream of questions threatening to barrel out of his mouth. He had taken the "super powers" thing in stride, but seeing Sheppard fly had prepared him somewhat. The idea that there could be multiple Sheppards out there, flying around and listening in on the world was a bit much. He felt a migraine coming on.

"Yes," Sheppard said, slowly. "There are others. Not many. I know two others personally, and Lorne's family--"

"The guy from earlier can fly!"

"Well, no. He's telekinetic."

" _What_?" Rodney felt faint. He brought his hand up to his left temple, pressing there. "God, is there a vein popping out of my forehead?"

Sheppard chuckled, low in his throat. Rodney lowered his hand slowly and slid his eyes over to where Sheppard still lounged, as though he hadn't just turned Rodney's world upside down. He was looking at Rodney with this amused, indulgent smirk playing on his lips.

"McKay," Sheppard said softly, "Relax. I'll tell you more, just not right now. Look at the river, look at the bridge. Look at the sky. Relax."

Rodney stared at him for a moment longer before he felt he had it in him to drop his shoulders and let the tension drain out of his neck. He shifted back on his hands, mirroring Sheppard's posture. Their hands rested an inch apart on the dusty dirty and Rodney resisted the urge to lean left and let their shoulders rest together. Sheppard swiveled his head toward Rodney, shrugging one shoulder. "See?"

"Yeah," Rodney muttered and took a deep breath. "Yeah."  


* * *

  
Radek scrunched his nose and tilted his head to one side, considering the scrap of paper stuck to the refrigerator with an Enterprise-shaped magnet. "Rodney?"

His roommate grunted into his coffee cup somewhere behind him. Radek took this to mean Rodney was available to answer a question.

"What is this phone number? Did you meet a girl?"

Rodney set his mug down with a thunk on the counter-top. "No. That is Sheppard's number."

"The flying man?"

"Mm," Rodney hummed an affirmative.

"Why would he give you his phone number?"

Rodney shot Radek a look on his way out of the kitchen. "Friends exchange numbers, you know."

"But Rodney, you don't make friends."

Rodney flipped him off and headed down the hall toward the bathroom, where he slammed the door and turned on the water. Undaunted, Radek followed him and leaned one shoulder against the wall. He shouted through the door, "And do you really believe that there are superheroes in the world? That he can fly?"

The water shut off and Rodney yanked the door open. "I told you, I saw it with my own eyes. He flew. He flew with me and his friend can move things with his mind."

"I'm sorry Rodney, but I don't believe you."

"Really."

" _Ano_! Really!"

Rodney pushed past him and stomped back to the kitchen. "Fine!" He shouted, yanking the paper off the fridge. "I'll just call him!"

"And do what?" Radek scoffed. "Have him tell me it's all true? Please!"

"You think this is a prank I'm pulling on you?"

"Unless everything I have ever learned, everything you and I have devoted our lives to studying and teaching, is a complete lie, it has to be! Rodney, this is ridiculous!"

"It's not a lie, Radek. Don't you see, these people aren't bending the rules, they're outside them." Rodney found his cell phone among the detritus littering their kitchen table. "I'll ask him to... to meet us. He'll tell you, he might be able to show you! If I can get him to meet us, will you go?"

Radek, feeling the beginnings of a rant coming on, pursed his lips. He squeezed the bridge of his nose under his glasses and nodded. Rodney, beaming, dialed.  


* * *

  
They decided to meet at a diner halfway between McKay and Zelenka's apartment and John's. Sheppard glared at Lorne through ordering and ramped it up when Lorne grinned at Zelenka, said, "Watch this," and sent the salt and pepper shakers waltzing across the chipped tabletop.

Sheppard hadn't even wanted to go through with the meet-up, and the showier Evan got the more likely it was the waitress would notice, and they weren't the freaking Men In Black, they couldn't wipe memories. Evan knew it drove Sheppard crazy when he casually used his powers in public; it was the main reason he did it as often as possible.

Evan had insisted it was all going to be fine, that they had to bring Rodney's roommate in on the secret. "They're scientist genius-types, right?" he'd said, after John hung up with McKay. "They could be assets!"

Sheppard had rolled his eyes. "How, exactly, can they be assets? This isn't a game, we don't base our operations out of a treehouse. There is no secret handshake. Lorne, this is stupidity on a level I can't even --"

"Sheppard," Evan cut him off.  "Trust me, everything is going to be fine. It's not stupid -- look, we really should talk about what Gram saw the other day."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Evan shuffled his feet. He hated having to describe the visions to Sheppard. He never had enough information, or the kind Sheppard really wanted. This time was no different.

The information was pretty vague. His grandmother's vision had involved Lucius and a new guy, but not McKay or Zelenka.

Evan had been in the middle of a white-knuckle cab ride when his cell rang, and as soon as his Gram's number showed on the screen he had known she wasn't going to have anything pleasant to say. It wasn't Sunday; this was not one of her catch-up calls.

"Evan Lorne," she had barked over the line. "What have you been getting into?"

"Gram?"

"Don't pretend you don't know it's me." The woman was scary, even on the phone. Evan felt the sudden urge to ask the cabbie to turn around and take him home so he could stand in the corner and think about what he'd done.

"Okay, so I know it's you," Evan said quickly. "Er... So, how are things?"

"You be quiet." Gram sighed, and a lengthy pause followed. "I'm worried about you, Bumblebee."

Lorne winced at the nickname. You star in one school play as a damn bee and it sticks with you for life. "Gram? Just tell me what you saw so I can go ahead and... not do it?"

"You'd do it anyway, no matter what I told you. It doesn't matter, because I don't know what you've done or what you'll do. Only that something very wrong is happening around you, and that Lucius fellow has something to do with it."

Evan relayed the vague details of his gram's vision to Sheppard on the way to the diner.

"The point is," Evan told Sheppard. "Whatever Lucius and this other guy are up to, it involves freaky medical experiments. So yeah, I think we could use a couple science guys on our team."

"Jesus." John pinched the bridge of his nose. "Still. They're not that kind of scientists. I don't think two ordinary physicists are gonna come up with a brilliant plan to stop some guy we've never even seen before. Have you told Carson about this?"

"Of course I talked to Carson. But you never know, Sheppard. They could help us out. McKay did government work once." At John's look Evan grinned. "Hey, I can use google too. He could get us in places we just can't--"

"Yeah, well he also said he pissed the government off but good, and I don't know what you think's going to happen or why we would need--"

"Just go with me on this! I have a feeling!"

Eventually, Sheppard gave in. Evan had zero psychic ability, but his gut instincts were good and had proven useful in the past. He had a feeling Sheppard really wanted to see McKay again, in his new non-stalker capacity, and the poor roommate deserved an explanation and some proof. It wasn't fair to let him go on thinking he was living with someone who hallucinated superheroes left and right. Of course, McKay probably could've kept his mouth shut about it and saved them all some trouble, but then again McKay didn't seem like someone who kept his mouth shut about anything, ever.

Except at that moment. While Evan hummed a little tune and made the ketchup bottle cut in on the shakers, stealing salt away from pepper, McKay was silent, his eyes flicking from the dancing condiments to Sheppard and back. Zelenka was gaping at Lorne and looking decidedly gobsmacked.

McKay finally stopped watching the spectacle on the table and focused on John. "So what is he, your Dick Grayson?"

Evan sent the ketchup bottle swinging into McKay's arm. "I am not."

Zelenka stifled a laugh behind his hand. John shrugged and said "He's... a friend. Lorne's been following me around for years, and now that I've been in one place for awhile he practically lives in my apartment." He  paused, thinking for a moment before looking over at Evan. "Do you have your own apartment? How do I not know where you live?"

Evan rolled his eyes and sent the salt, pepper and ketchup to the end of the table where they were still. "Yes, Sheppard. I have a place to live. If you wanted to let me park it on your couch, save me some on rent --"

"No." John said shortly, and at that moment the waitress delivered their burgers.

McKay dove into his food. Evan spared a couple of seconds to marvel at the sheer speed at which McKay was devouring the burger, then set to dressing his own. Sheppard had stopped, a french fry halfway to his mouth, to watch. Evan watched Sheppard's face flicker between awe and disgust, as McKay snapped his fingers saying, "Ketchup, someone --"

Evan picked it up with his hand and passed it along, smirking. Zelenka glanced up from his careful preparation of his own burger and noticed them watching McKay. "Oh, you'll get used to it," he said. "Rodney is like a lion about his food. Try to touch it, come back with a bloody stump where a hand used to be."

McKay paused with half a burger in one hand and two fries in the other. "If you knew how likely it was for dinner to be cut short by flying flatware when I was growing up, not to mention the constant intrusions on the sanctity of leftovers in the fridge at Area 51, you would understand."

Evan raised his eyebrows with interest. "Area 51?"

Rodney took a huge bite of cheeseburger and looked shifty before replying, "Briefly, yeah."

Zelenka started to comment on that, but was cut off by Evan's cell phone playing Bowie's "Heroes" to announce a phone call. McKay snorted at the choice of ringtone before Evan picked it up.

"Hey, Carson."

"Bloody hell, you need to get down here," Carson said in a rush.

Evan kept an eye on the others at the table. "What's up?"

Sheppard obviously wasn't listening to the call, opting instead to watch McKay polish off his fries and attempt to steal one from Zelenka, who deftly stabbed McKay in the hand with his fork. John offered a few of his own fries with a grin which McKay returned. Evan rolled his eyes. "Carson?"

Carson sputtered for a moment before he seemed to get himself together. "That idiot Lucius is outside my practice!"

"He's what?" Evan snapped his fingers to get Sheppard's attention.

"He's passing out fliers in front of my building," Carson said. "I want him gone but I'm in no mood to try and handle him myself --"

"No, yeah." Evan pushed his plate away. "Just relax, we'll be right there. Okay?"

"Right." Carson sighed. "I'll see you soon."

"Put on your whale sounds CD," Evan cajoled. "Find your happy place."

"Oh, shut up," Carson snapped, and hung up.

Evan flicked his phone shut. "We gotta go. That was Carson."

"What is it now?" John asked, already sliding out of the booth.

"Lucius. _Again_. Looks like he wants our attention, too. He's passing out fliers for his 'self-affirmation' classes in front of Beckett's building."

Sheppard sighed. "Guess we're going."

Evan nodded and hopped up out of the booth. McKay and Zelenka followed and John held up a hand. "Look, you guys really shouldn't--"

"Why?" demanded McKay, pulling some bills out of his wallet and tossing them on the table. "Are you going to meet Lex Luthor or what?"

"Not exactly," Evan said. "But it's someone like us. He's kind of a huge sleaze, runs these schemes to swindle people out of their savings. He's a minor nuisance but a problem nonetheless."

Sheppard looked like he was about to say something, probably a succinct "Go home," but McKay ignored him.

"Okay." McKay nodded, "So let's go."  


* * *

  
McKay changed his tune once they were en route to the subway.

"So," he said, low enough so that only John would hear, though it probably didn't matter since Lorne and Zelenka were chatting along about who knew what behind them, "By minor nuisance he meant what exactly?"

John cut his eyes over to McKay, who was looking nervous, twisting his hands in front of him as he rambled on: "I mean, if we're on our way to do some heavy superhero stuff -- It's just that while it sounds really cool and the geek in me has been waiting for this moment my whole life, I also happen to have a sharp sense of self-preservation, which --"

"Wow, McKay." John chuckled, and McKay's jaw snapped shut. John nudged him with one shoulder and said, "Don't worry. Lucius is just a creep. We break up his operations every few weeks, maybe months if we're lucky, and it's pretty boring stuff. He's persuasive -- that's his thing."

"His superpower is the power of persuasion?"

John almost laughed out loud at the obvious disappointment in McKay's voice. "It's more of a mind control thing."

"Oh. That's --"

"Creepy. Yeah. He's had harems, which we put the kibosh on, a few churches, some end-of-the-world type cults, a bunch of motivational seminar scams. Mostly we just show up, look threatening, hit a few guards if we have to. In and out, no problem. If he's still in the advertising stages this should be pretty simple."

They had come to the steps leading down onto the platform and John took them two at a time with McKay trailing after him looking perturbed. "I don't like that supervillains exist. The heroes, okay, fine. But this is actually disturbing."

"Lucius is not a supervillain." John said. He swiped his card and walked backwards through the turnstile so they could still talk while McKay searched for his own. "Trust me. He's a second-rate con artist and a giant sleaze."

Over McKay's shoulder John caught sight of Lorne yakking away at Zelenka by the Metrocard machine. McKay found his card and made to swipe it, but John put out a hand to his arm, stopping the movement.

"You don't have to come," he said. "if it freaks you out, I mean. This whole superpowers thing. I get that."

McKay gave him a look, rolling his eyes and shaking his arm free to swipe the card. "Super powers do not freak me out. I am sick with excitement about those and plan to grill your geneticist fellow mutant as soon as you finish dealing with this Lucius person."

Zelenka and Lorne came through the turnstiles  as the distant rumble of a train reverberated off the platform walls. It screeched down the tunnel and into the station, a flurry of people got off and the four of them stepped on. It was packed inside, so they ended up shuffling around knots of people to find handholds. As the doors closed and the conductor's voice warbled through the intercom, John caught McKay's attention over the head of a tiny old lady whose umbrella was poking John in the thigh.

"What?" McKay demanded, startling the boy standing next to him.

John grinned. "Not mutants, McKay."

McKay opened his mouth, probably to ask an unsubtle question, but stopped himself, eyes darting around the crowded train. He flushed, then said with a smile. "Freaks of nature, then."

"Better," John said, and smiled back.  


* * *

  
Carson got to the top of the subway stairs just in time to catch Sheppard and Lorne jogging up them.

"I went out the back way to avoid dealing with him," Carson said, then caught sight of the two men standing uncertainly at the top of the stairs behind his friends. "You brought... company?"

John gestured to the men. "Carson, this is Dr. Rodney McKay and Dr. Radek Zelenka. Uh...friends of ours. This is Dr. Carson Beckett."

Zelenka and McKay nodded a greeting and Lorne snorted. "Suddenly I feel underqualified."

"Yes, well." Carson gathered his wits about him, intending to give both John and Evan a chewing out for bringing two random powerless people into a potentially sticky situation. "Hello to you both. I am sure there's a good story behind how you ended up stuck with these two," he waved at Sheppard and Lorne and rolled his eyes, "but for now I'd really like to shoo that charlatan away from my building."

"That's exactly what we're going to do, Carson," said Lorne. "I can see him from here. Hot pink fliers, nice."

"Yeah, really catches the eye," John murmured, motioning with his head for everyone to move off down the street. He glanced back at McKay and Zelenka. "You guys, just sort of hang back. You don't want him talking to you, trust me. It might help to look casual. Pretend you don't know us."

McKay nodded fervently. "Casual, yes. I can definitely do that."

Zelenka tilted his head in acknowledgement, and with that John turned around to narrow his eyes at Lucius, who had spotted them. John lifted one hand and waved jauntily. "Lucius!" He called with fake surprise, "Long time no ass-kicking!"

Carson sighed. "Must it be a production? Just get rid of him so I can get back to my patients, please!"

Sheppard nudged him with an elbow. "Relax, Carson."

Carson rolled his eyes. "Right," he muttered under his breath.

As they drew closer, Lucius smiled his slippery smile -- the one that made Carson's skin crawl -- as Lucius tried like always to get inside his head. It never worked and never would; their immunity to Lucius' powers was a lucky break. Carson could only assume that the gene was to blame -- it wasn't as if there was a way to study it, but he, Lorne and Sheppard had never been vulnerable to the mind control. He could still feel it, though, knocking at the doors of his mind and tapping its foot on the welcome mat. It took some effort not to grimace.

"Sheppard, hey!" said Lucius, playing along with the "old buddies" routine John always put on when they crossed paths. "What are you and your little friends doing in this part of town today? Helping old ladies cross the street? Earning another scout badge?"

Lorne chuckled softly. "Nah, Lucius, we're in pest control these days. Heard there was an infestation on, oh hey, this square of sidewalk."

Carson, as always, said nothing. He tried not to look too nervous and shifty, and failed miserably. John's heel came down on his toes, stilling the worst of his shuffling.

"Lucius," John said, his voice dropping an octave. "Move along. I'll let you keep your fliers and maybe even let you have your fun for a day before I shut you down, if you vacate the front of Dr. Beckett's practice right now."

"Does Dr. Beckett own this sidewalk, Sheppard?" Lucius handed out three fliers in rapid succession. Lorne started walking backwards next to the people walking by, plucking the fliers out of their hands before they made it more than a step away from Lucius. Carson tracked his movements, flicking his gaze back to Lucius with every snatched flier.

He suppressed a shudder at the frozen smile plastered across Lucius' smug face.

"He doesn't own it," said Lorne, shoving the fliers back in Lucius' hands. "But he has an interest in it, so we came to make sure nothing compromised it. You, Lucius, are compromising this particular section of the sidewalk, which just happens to be in front of Dr. Beckett's building. Funny you should decide to peddle --" He grabbed a flier back and read it. "Really Lucius? Another 2012 church?"

Lucius' face grew serious, and Carson's skin started crawling again when the man started speaking. "Mr. Lorne, the Mayan calendar predicts --"

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Carson finally exploded, unwilling to sit through more theatrics. "Just go away, Lucius, before one of them slugs you! You know it will happen and there will be a scene."

Carson ignored the dig of John's boot into his foot. "Just go, and in the next week or so I'll be getting sedatives to the poor souls you manage to brainwash. Why the bloody hell did you choose my block?"

 _Oh -- Oh, dear,_ Carson's brain started to catch up with his mouth.  "It seems awfully sloppy of you --" Lucius was never this blatant. Carson nearly gasped. They were all idiots. "Oh. Oh, Lucius what are you really up to?"  


* * *

  
John swallowed a groan. He had been too distracted by everything -- McKay, Lorne, the outing of his secret, everything -- to stop and wonder what Lucius might gain by setting himself up to get caught by passing out material in front of Carson's building. It was so obviously a ploy. _Way to go, John_ he thought _Real smart. Now what?_

"Up to?" Lucius was saying. "What makes you think I'm up to anything? And why haven't you introduced me to your new friends, those awkwardly hovering fellows over there?"

John knew he shouldn't have, but he looked over to check on McKay and Zelenka anyway. They looked hastily away from the scene, suddenly finding the brickwork of the building immensely pleasing to look at.

"They're visiting from out of town," Lorne blurted. "So let's just stay on topic."

"Out of town," Lucius purred. "Really? And are these out-of-towners just a little bit different? Easy enough to find out, I suppose."

John saw McKay open his mouth and somewhere in his brain neurons fired, sending out the BAD BAD VERY BAD signal, but before he could react and stop him McKay had said something to Lucius and Lucius was zeroing in on him like a cat spotting a mouse.

"Not different, hm?" Lucius leaned forward, ever so slightly, and John could see the moment McKay was hooked, the second Lucius made it into his head. _Fuck_.

"Leave them alone, Lucius." Lorne snapped. "They have nothing to do with this."

"Don't they?" Lucius murmured, keeping eye contact with McKay, who had gone slack-jawed. Inwardly, John cringed. He had seen plenty of people with that look before, stuck in Lucius' hold, in a strange physical limbo while the master creep decided what to do with them. "I want something from you, Sheppard. From you and your other gifted friends. I wonder, would you be more willing to give it if I pulled the strings on this one. I could send him running into traffic. I could make him take the elevator to the top floor of Dr. Beckett's building and toss himself out the window."

"You'd be dead before he made it a step," John spat. "This is uncalled for, Lucius. Leave him alone."

Lucius looked away from McKay, who immediately sagged, his knees buckling. Zelenka steadied him with an arm around his back and looked from Lucius to John with wide, terrified eyes. McKay rubbed at his head, mumbling. John did his best to ignore it and focus on his pest problem, which was quickly becoming something bigger; Lucius had never pulled anything quite this blatant in front of them before. The hairs on the back of John's neck stood up -- none of this looked good.

"I've made a deal with a new...business partner, of sorts." Lucius told him, "Mr. Kenmore is very interested in people such as myself, and such as the three of you. Mr. Kenmore and I agree that certain gifts, certain talents, certain rare genetic occurrences, merit further research. We're interested in implementation for the most part, you see."

Carson caught on a second before John did. "You're talking about trying to duplicate the gene. It's not possible Lucius, don't waste your time."

"Oh, I don't know. Mr. Kenmore would disagree with that statement." Lucius' eyes flicked toward the building's revolving door. "Speaking of Mr. Kenmore, here he is now."

Lorne stiffened next to John when the man stepped out of the doors, a grin on his face for Lucius. "The new player?" asked John under his breath. Lorne responded with a short nod.

 _Great_.

"I see all our friends are here," Kenmore was saying. "Mr. Sheppard, Mr. Lorne. And the good doctor. So glad we could finally meet."

"I don't know who you are," Lorne said, low and threatening. "But we're not your friends and we're not interested in any sick experiments having to do with our abilities. You want to do tests, run them on yourself."

"Oh, but we aren't all so genetically gifted, are we?" said Kenmore. "Sadly, I am but a mortal man. You would be wrong, however, to assume I am without certain powers. You will cooperate with me."

"Yeah, okay," John drawled, fighting his instincts which screamed at him to fight, to neutralize the threat. "You hold your breath on that one."

"Mr. Kenmore," Lucius said, smooth as silk and slick as oil, "Perhaps we can revisit this conversation at a later date. We have an appointment to get to, after all."

John's jaw clenched. Had they found others? The only people he knew with the gene were standing in front of him, save Lorne's family. Of course there were others, but trying to find them would mean risking revealing their powers to the wrong people. People like _Kenmore_. John had never tried and since no one else ever found him, he had assumed there just weren't that many people like him out there.

"Of course," Kenmore nodded. "We'll be seeing each other soon, gentlemen."

"And Sheppard?"

John wanted to punch Lucius in the face. So badly. "What?"

"You'll cooperate."

Lucius sent a significant glance in McKay's direction.

"I'll kill you, Lucius." John growled, the words coming from some mysterious and protective part of him, surprising him and surprising Lucius.

"You can try."

In the street tires screeched and a car door opened. "Hands above your head, all of you!"

Everyone -- save for Lucius and Kenmore, who had turned away and started down the street -- turned to look.

"What the fuck?"

That was Lorne, but John was already moving, grabbing for McKay's arm. "We gotta go."

The cop, whose car had been the source of the noise, left the driver side door open and got out of the vehicle, gun drawn.

"That's a cop with a gun," said McKay, a little hysterical.

"I know."

"We should do what he says!"

Lucius turned, halfway down the block, and wiggled his fingers in a wave.

"I said get your hands up, or I'll shoot!" The cop looked serious, but there was a spark in his eyes identical to all the other people John had seen under Lucius' influence -- it was like he was still in there, aware of what he was doing but without any idea _why_.

"What the fuck, what the fuck!" Lorne was muttering even as he put his hands up. Carson and Zelenka followed suit, and McKay struggled to free his arm from John's grasp.

"Lucius has him," John said. "He'll shoot us with our hands up or not. Carson, get these two inside. Lorne --"

The cop was waving his gun in John's direction. "No talking!"

This was bad. John glanced down the street and saw no sign of Lucius or Kenmore. Lucius had to have gotten to this guy in advance, which meant he might have gotten to any number of police officers, which meant really bad things. For now though, he was immediately concerned with the man holding a gun. John's sidearm was, as usual, strapped to his ankle. He didn't dare reach for it, and even if he could somehow to get to it without the cop catching on, there was no way in hell John was going to point a gun at a uniformed officer in broad daylight.

"Listen," John said, hoping he sounded soothing and reasonable, and put his hands up as directed. "My friends and I were just leaving."

The cop didn't have anything to say to that. John could tell he was struggling. It was possible Lucius' influence was wearing off. It was also possible that the guy's remaining self-control was getting into a nasty fight with Lucius' directives, which could lead to some really fucked up shit going down.

"Don't move," John instructed the others, keeping his voice low. "He's strung tight, just. Don't. Move."

"Not moving, not moving," McKay chanted behind him.

"Hey!" The gun jerked in the cop's hand, aiming straight at McKay. "I _said_ no talking!"

"He wasn't, he wasn't talking!" Lorne said, frantic, his eyes darting this way and that. He was looking, John knew, for something -- anything -- he could do to dial down the situation. There was nothing. John had already catalogued everything in his head and all they could do at this point was hope Lucius' grip loosened. People were stopping to stare from across the street. No one came near their side of the block. Some screamed in surprise when they caught sight of what was going on. A particularly sharp exclamation had the cop flinching, his hand flexing on the gun.

McKay also flinched at the noise, and it seemed to be the proverbial straw that broke the scientist's back because he starting babbling. "This is the most screwed up thing that has ever happened to me. Please don't shoot me, seriously, I get that you're -- you know -- but _please_."

John knew what was going to happen in the same moment the cop's finger squeezed the trigger, because he could hear the tightening and sense the mechanisms in the weapon clicking, but he couldn't move fast enough. The sound of the gun firing once, twice, sent the spectators scattering, pushing through the doors of delis, banks, and businesses lining the street. Rodney went down, taking Zelenka with him, and John saw everything after that in slow motion. The cop passed out, Carson hit his knees and had Rodney's shirt ripped open and his hand covered in blood in an instant. Lorne was still save for his head, swiveling to take in the situation. Traffic stopped at his will. The revolving doors of Carson's building slammed shut to prevent anyone moving in or out before they were ready to deal with it. John got to his knees next to Carson.

"How bad?" He heard himself ask, not calmly, but not sounding anywhere near as terrified as he really, really was.

"Bad. He's losing too much blood way too fast. We don't have time for an ambulance--"

"Carson, fix him."

Carson's head jerked up, his hands keeping pressure against the bullet wounds. "John --"

"Do it."

"You know I --"

"Carson, fuck your moral code! This is our fault -- now fucking _fix_ him."

Carson looked down at McKay's pale face. His eyes were open and he was gasping, but not speaking and that scared John more than all the blood had. "Alright," Carson murmured. "Alright. Lorne!"

Lorne turned and replied, tightly, "We getting him inside?"

"Yes. Make it happen."

John stood and helped Zelenka, who was shaking but holding it together surprisingly well, get to his feet. They formed a half-assed shield so no one would actually see McKay being levitated off the ground. Lorne triggered the release for the doors and they went through--all of them, except for John, who found his arm caught in an iron grip.

"Sheppard?"

He turned and found himself staring up and up, past a very big chest framed by very big arms, into a very serious face. "Kind of busy," John said and yanked his arm free. The guy grabbed him again.

"You really need to come with me."

John tried to pull himself free again, and when that didn't work he swung with his other fist. Huge Guy blocked it easily.

"She said you'd make this difficult," Huge Guy said gruffly. "I don't wanna do this the hard way."

"I don't know who you are but you need to let me go real fast."

"Look, I'm trying to help you," the guy said quietly, his grip on John's arm tightening. "You want to get rid of Kenmore?"

John glanced to the rotating doors of Carson's building. "My friend was just shot. I need to make sure he's okay."

"I get that. I'll let you go, but you're gonna have to promise to come back down as soon as you know he's good because we need to move quick."

John shook his arm free of the man's loosening grasp. "Why should I trust you?"

"I could've taken you whether you wanted to go with me or not," the man replied. "I didn't."

"Give me ten minutes."  


* * *

  
Carson very rarely used his "unusual abilities". On the semi-rare occasion that Lorne or Sheppard (or both) managed a serious injury, he accessed the power he sometimes forgot he had, and "fixed" it.

Carson could heal anything. He could place his hands on a man and knit his skin and bones, muscle and sinew back together good as new. He could also tear it all down; he was capable of evisceration, of murder.

He found this out when he was twelve and his best friend, Timothy MacDougall, took a fall out of the highest tree in the field behind Carson's house. Timothy's arm was very definitely broken, bent as it was at an odd and sickly angle. Carson had knelt beside his friend, utterly terrified of what their mums would do to them both for climbing that tree, and placed a hand on Timothy's shoulder. He wished in that moment that nothing was wrong, and that the bone was just fine. Then, suddenly as the fall, the bone _was_ fine. The skin was back to its normal freckled hue, and it no longer bent the wrong way. Timothy, who had passed out the moment he hit the ground, was never the wiser.

Carson had been completely stumped.

He tried this on a rabbit with a poor leg. Fixed it. He tried it on his Gran's arthritis. No more aching joints. She had been gobsmacked when she woke from her nap to find her hands once again able to hold knitting needles. Carson's mum called it a miracle. Carson called it a bit freaky.

He realized that his ability could go the other way as an adult, and purely by accident. He was at Uni in Edinburgh for his undergraduate work. He had stayed out late at the pub with a couple of classmates, and was walking home on his own, when he found himself grabbed roughly from behind and slammed face first into a brick wall with his arm twisted painfully behind his back. He spared a moment to think "Good Lord, am I being held up?" and then he thought wouldn't it be brilliant if he had any sort of aptitude when it came to self defense. Suddenly, his attacker was on the ground howling in pain and clutching his wrist which appeared to have no bones in it at all. His hand hung, limp and rapidly darkening, at a completely unnatural angle to his forearm.

Carson had turned tail and run as fast as he possibly could.

He had always wanted to be a doctor; to make people better; to figure out what made them sick in the first place; to cure the incurable. Carson spent so many nights staring at his own hands, knowing what they could do with barely a conscious thought on his part, and knew he couldn't be a doctor and use what he had begun to refer to as his "gift". It just didn't seem _sporting_. It wasn't natural, and it wasn't fair, and fixing people with the gift would do nothing for the advancement of widespread solutions.

Then he found out, again by accident, that his gift included a hidden facet: an on switch.

It was during his rotation in pediatrics, the most difficult period in his studies because Carson couldn't stand to see children suffer, that he became aware of the side-effects of using his powers. It wasn't much easier with adults, but children caught him right in the chest, making it hard to sit on his hands while some died in front of him.

There was a little girl named Juliet, who was ten years old, and who loved butterflies. Her room was covered in butterfly drawings, butterfly photos, stuffed butterfly toys. She even wore butterfly pins in her hair, then later affixed to the scarf she wrapped around her head once the treatments took her hair. She had been sent home with her parents, only to be brought back within a day or so. She had taken a bad fall and skinned her knee. Her immune system was so weak that the simple scrape had provided an open door for infection. She was dying, all because of a trip up the front steps.

Carson watched the antibiotics and steroids do nothing but make her worse, and in the back of his mind his gift was whispering: Fix her. Just the infection, nothing more.

It would have been so easy to draw the cancer right out of her little body, but he wouldn't. He would simply take care of the infection. It would catch the attention of the attending physician, the resulting rapid turnaround. But these things happened in the hospital. Long shots, impossibilities and slim chances sometimes reversed and became successes, practical miracles.

So he did it, and Juliet got a little better. She ate solid food and giggled, even got up and walked about the children's ward. Carson didn't feel a speck of guilt. He had saved her and he was glad.

Then, the butterflies showed up. Live butterflies, beating themselves almost to death against the window of Juliet's room. It was a sight to behold -- butterflies of every type, types not indigenous to the area, types which were in fact absolutely tropical in nature. The nurses were stymied while Juliet was delighted.

"And where have these lovely visitors come from?" Carson asked her one day while he read over her chart.

Juliet looked up from her book and smiled. "I asked them to come."

Carson had chuckled. The imaginations these children had never failed to impress him. "Did you now? Are you planning a butterfly party?"

"When I go home again," Juliet had said, conspiratorial as she leaned forward in her bed, "I'm going to invite all the animals in the wood behind our house. I can hear them from here, calling me home. They would like to meet me, because they've never talked to a person before. Not like they can talk to me. We talk in our heads."

Carson indulged her, listening to the same story every day for the next week until it was nearly time for Juliet to go home. She left the hospital and Carson moved on to a rotation in cardiology, and he rarely thought of the swarm of unusual butterflies which had hovered outside the children's wing during her stay there.

Over the course of his career, all the way up to the day Rodney McKay was shot outside Carson's practice, Carson used his gifts to help exactly ten patients. Of the first five, two needed psych consults after they started claiming to have developed magical ability. One of them, a Mrs. Lewis, claimed to be able to astral project outside of her body. Carson didn't believe her any more than the nurses or psychiatrists did, until she started in on him specifically, detailing for him in picture-perfect clarity the state of his apartment as he'd left it that morning.

Carson had drawn her blood and his own, and spent several days in the labs. Of the next five people he healed, three were sent to psych for evaluation. The difference now was that Carson, once he made the decision to help them, had drawn their blood before laying hands on them as well as after they began exhibiting what he was beginning to suspect were powers. He compared the samples, measuring them up against his own and in the fluorescent light of the lab confirmed his fears:

He could heal anything with his touch but that touch could, if the patient possessed a recessive gene, activate it.

After that, Carson stuck to medicine, and pushed his gifts to the back of his mind until the day he met John Sheppard.  


* * *

  
Rodney woke with a jerk. It was bright -- way too bright to see -- and everything felt weird. He felt tingly, shocked all over, hot and cold and _weird_. Everything sounded wrong. People were talking but he couldn't make out the words above the high, piercing rush of white noise drowning them out.

He thought, _Oh God, I'm dead_ just before it all slammed down. His eyes flew open ( _didn't realize they were closed_ ), his ears rang but he could hear Radek's voice, frantic and rambling Czech ( _not dead, then_ ), and he could feel his body again ( _nothing hurts, this should hurt, this should--_ )

"Dr. McKay?"

Rodney blinked and focused on the faces floating over him. "Yeah?"

Radek sighed and backed away, taking off his glasses and muttering. Rodney tried to sit up but a hand--Beckett's--pressed him back down.

"You can get up, just go slowly," said Beckett. "You're all patched up, but you did suffer a bit of a trauma --"

"I was shot! Twice!" Rodney was freaking out a little, he knew, but not nearly as much as he deserved to be freaking out. He had actually been _shot_. Twice.

"Yeah you were," Lorne agreed, cupping a hand under Rodney's elbow and helping him sit up.

Rodney looked around. They were in an office and he was on what had been a nice couch before he'd apparently bled all over it. He looked down at his shirt, at the perfect bullet holes right there on his chest and the dark red stains all over it. "Holy crap."

From a chair in the corner of the office, Zelenka made a distressed noise which drew Beckett's attention.

"Are you alright, Dr. Zelenka?"

"Shocked," Radek said, shortly. "What just happened? How did you --"

"Ah," Beckett glanced back at Rodney, looking just a little too guilty for Rodney's taste.

Rodney yanked the collar of his shirt away from his neck and looked down at his chest, which was fine. Not a mark on him, not even the scar from the time his sister accidentally burned him with a curling iron. "Holy crap," he said again.

"You got the Carson Special," Lorne was saying. "Kinda cool, huh?"

Carson winced. Rodney stared at Lorne and wondered what universe these people were from, where getting shot and magically healed constituted "cool."

Okay so it was kind of cool. But on principle, Rodney had to ask, "I'm with Zelenka. What just happened and what the hell did you do to me?"

"I... fixed you," said Beckett.

"It's his thing."

Rodney sent Lorne another look. "His _thing_? Superpower, you mean? Oh, God. I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"It sucks," Lorne agreed. "Sorry. But hey, you didn't die today. Win!"

Beckett pushed Lorne toward the door. "Evan, take Dr. Zelenka to get some coffee. I need to speak with Dr. McKay alone."

Zelenka didn't argue but Lorne did, loudly, as Beckett hurried them out of the room and shut the door behind them.

"Oh God, am I going to grow an extra limb or something?" Rodney asked, twisting his hands in the hem of his blood-stained shirt. "It's not that I don't appreciate the whole saving my life thing. It's nice not being dead and all, and wow--this is the second time this month I nearly died. I really need to get out of New York. No, the States. I should move back to Canada because this is--"

"Dr. McKay."

Beckett looked so distressed that Rodney almost felt bad. He sighed, shaky and still really freaked out. "You can call me Rodney," he said. "I only make my inferiors call me Doctor."

"Ah. Well. Thank you," Beckett stammered, then pulled up a chair to sit in front of Rodney with his hands clasped in front of him. "You won't grow any extra limbs. No worries there."

"Oh, thank God."

"Right. But I have to tell you that my ability, while handy in these situations, has its drawbacks. In the past, people I healed using the gift have on occasion developed abilities of their own."

"What? How? What?" Rodney stood and paced to the other side of the office. "I realize medicine is barely a real science but aren't there clear rules about this sort of stuff? How does this work?"

Beckett, to his credit, ignored the insult. "I don't know where the gene comes from, only that it is responsible for my ability, and John and Evan's. Lucius also has the gene, as do many members of Lorne's family. I have met few gene carriers over the years, but there are certainly others out there. The gene seems to exist in many people, but for the most part remains dormant."

"Until you lay hands on them, hm?" Rodney continued to pace. "Your gene activates dormant ones, does it?"

"Yes," Beckett said, and he sounded relieved that Rodney was getting it. "It isn't one hundred percent. I'll have to draw your blood and run a DNA test, for starters. In the meantime, you might start noticing differences in perception, strength, stamina, or all of the above. You might find yourself able to do things which before now were impossible. Or you may feel nothing."

"So," Rodney paused. "Let me get this straight. I have what, a fifty-fifty chance of becoming a superhero?"

"I honestly don't know the odds. But yes, there is a chance."

Rodney took a few seconds to process that, then let himself look around the office while his brain sorted through the events of the day.

He remembered standing on the sidewalk, remembered that creep with the even creepier friend, then the exponentially creepier mind-controlled police officer. He remembered being down on the pavement, hearing Sheppard yelling at Beckett. And then it was all a blur.

"Beckett. Where's Sheppard?"

Beckett grimaced. "We don't know. He left as soon as you were stabilized."

"Well," Rodney fidgeted. Hadn't Sheppard wanted to make sure he made it? "Did he go after Lucius?"

"I don't know," Carson replied, spreading his hands out in front of him. "He goes off on his own quite a bit. We never know."

"But. Is he--That is, are we sure he's safe?"

Carson just shook his head. Rodney took it to mean that he didn't know.

"What do I do now?" He asked. "Do I go home and wait to figure out I can leap tall buildings in a single bound?"

"Ah, yes, basically that's it."

Rodney looked down at himself, and the sight of his blood was still a shock. "Could you get me a shirt?"  


* * *

  
John had been pacing the glass-walled office for a good twenty minutes, getting more pissed off by the second. The guy from before, tattooed and dreadlocked, had muttered "Dex," when John asked for a name, then left without another word, locking the door behind him.

Just when John had decided that throwing a chair through one of the windows was his best bet -- there was no way this wasn't some kind of trap. The building was a skyscraper, he could jump out and be long gone before Dex or anyone else noticed. Not that he had seen anyone else. The trip up from the cavernous lobby to this office had been completely people-free.  He considered the windows some more; there was no way to open them, but he really didn't mind shattering them --

He heard the woman's footsteps, the swipe of a key-card, and smelled her perfume all before he turned around.

"Hello, John."

"Oh," he snapped. "So I'm not going to have to make a break for it out those windows."

"Bulletproof. Sorry," the woman replied, holding up her hands. John's eyes cut to the doors.  "You won't get through those, either. I'd really rather you stuck around for just a while longer. Don't you want to know who I am before you go running out of here half-cocked?"

"No," John bit out, taking in the empty reception area beyond the glass walls. "I'm sure you're a buddy of Lucius and his new little friend."

"Ah, Lucius. No, I feel I need to emphatically state that I am in no way affiliated with him or his associate Michael Kenmore. Please, John. Sit down and let me explain."

"Yeah thanks, I'll stand. I have no idea who you are or what your deal is, so excuse me if I'd like to keep on my toes for now."

"Understood."

The woman cleared her throat and took a seat behind a big, glossy wood desk. She was tall and thin with the kind of posture even the military hadn't been able to force John's spine to follow. Statuesque might have been a good word for her. She had curly dark hair and kind eyes. She didn't look like an evil overlord but John had learned not to stereotype.

"My name is Dr. Elizabeth Weir and I'm not going to harm you." She smiled. "I heard from Ronon about your ordeal with Lucius and Michael today. I hope all is well?"

"I'm fine. As far as I know, so is everyone else. Ronon?"

"Ronon Dex, you met him earlier. More on that later." Elizabeth cleared her throat, folding her hands on the desk. "You can call me Elizabeth if you like. John, I'm here to help you. To introduce you to people like yourself --" When John opened his mouth to interrupt, intending to tell her he wasn't interested in experiments or forced breeding or whatever she was planning that fit into the parameters of his worse nightmares, she held up her hand. "Again, I'm not going to harm you. I honestly don't think I could if I tried."

Elizabeth stood up and walked toward him. John stiffened, ready to clock her if he had to. If she had a tazer or something, he had zero qualms about knocking her flat.

"I can see you aren't going to trust me just because I ask you to. I'd like you to meet some friends of mine. I'll explain everything as we walk."

"Where are we going?" John started calculating escape routes. A set of elevators was situated directly across from the office. Sign for the stairs to the left. They had to be at least twenty stories up. Maybe he could get the stairs up to the roof --

"Please, don't run," Elizabeth said.  "I'd like you to meet some people, tour the facility, and take some information with you."

"Why are you doing this now?"

"You're difficult to track down -- or you were until you settled in New York. Once I knew you were here in the city, it wasn't difficult to find you. Approaching you, on the other hand... You don't strike me as much of a listener."

John shrugged.

"It doesn't matter now," Elizabeth said. "Before, I planned on waiting you out. Maybe finding a way to contact you through Evan Lorne or Carson Beckett -- yes, I know who they are. But John, you must realize that Michael Kenmore is dangerous, and with Lucius he is even more so. Things have become urgent. We need all the help we can get now, and believe me -- so will you."

John followed Elizabeth out of the fishbowl office and to the shiny set of elevators. Ever since he'd been deposited inside the office by a silent Ronon, he had been straining to hear something -- anything, but he hadn't even been able to make out the sounds of traffic below. Now he leaned just a little toward the elevators, trying to discern whether or not there were other people in the building. All he could hear was the whirring noise the elevator's lift mechanism made after Elizabeth punched the down button with one perfectly manicured finger.

"Sorry," she said. "The building is soundproofed."

John glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "You're observant."

"It's a skill I've acquired over the years. There are others here, as I said. Once we get downstairs you'll long for the quiet."

"Screaming from the labs?"

John thought she rolled her eyes at that, but wasn't able to tell because the elevator had dinged its arrival and Elizabeth was stepping on ahead of him. Once she was in, she turned and her face was as composed as ever. John hung back, still fighting with the flight instinct tugging at his gut. He could jet down those stairs--

"Get in the elevator, John." Elizabeth held one hand out against the elevator door to keep it from shutting between them. "This is important."

Not for the first time, John felt the moment settle around him and sensed its weight in the air. This _was_ important. Thinking about the shiny piece of luminescent sea glass in the box on his dresser at home, John nodded and stepped onto the elevator.

Elizabeth pressed the button for the second floor. The doors slid shut and the car dropped fast enough that John's stomach jumped into his throat. They fell smoothly and quickly down, down, down until with another lurch and a bright _ding!_ the elevator stopped.

The doors opened and Dex -- Ronon, John reminded himself -- was standing there, one hand flicking a lighter over and over. The flame popped up, disappeared, popped up, disappeared. Ronon stepped back to let them off the elevator.

"Hey," he said with a nod in John's direction. "Sorry about earlier. Elizabeth's better with the whole explaining thing."

"Uh." John shrugged. "No problem, I guess."

"Ronon, you aren't staying here with us?" Elizabeth asked, her sculpted eyebrows drawing together as Ronon backed into the empty elevator.

"Got class," Ronon said. He lifted his hand in an open wave and John saw that there was no lighter there at all. Ronon grinned, closed and opened his hand again, and a tiny ball of flame appeared then sputtered out just before the doors closed.

"Holy shit," John breathed.

"Yes." Elizabeth sounded amused behind him. John turned to look at her. "Come meet Teyla."

Teyla, it turned out, was in a sun room of some sort at the end of a long hallway of doors. She smiled at their arrival and unfolded herself from her cross-legged position on the floor. Teyla, John noticed, was intensely beautiful with copper hair tied back in a leather cord and the kind of flawless skin that ended up on billboards and magazine pages. He couldn't figure her age, and when she said, "Welcome, John," he thought he detected some kind of accent but couldn't place it.

"Hi," he said, struck a little dumb.

"Teyla has been with us for quite some time," Elizabeth was saying. "She has been invaluable."

"Look," John said, starting to feel the creep of annoyance again, and feeling a little guilty about copping an attitude in front of Teyla who was radiating kindness at him from every pore. "It would be really nice if someone could explain to me who you all are. Who is 'us'? Is this like a royal 'we' thing? What the hell is going on?"

His body was tight, legs spread and feet planted firm. John crossed his arms and glared, trying his best to project an air of _Give me answers or I'll find someone to beat them out of._

Teyla reached out and placed her hand against John's crossed arms. "I know this must be a shock. Ronon told me of Dr. McKay's injuries, and I am sure you are very worried for him --"

"How do you even know who he is? Have you been stalking me? Lorne? All of us?"

"Ronon has been taking classes at Columbia since your initial meeting with Dr. McKay," Elizabeth explained. "We thought, given the situation, that a set of eyes and ears nearby would be a prudent safety measure."

"Safety measure," John repeated flatly.

"Lucius Lavin and Michael Kenmore," said Teyla. "Their alliance is not as fresh as they would have you believe. We have known for some time that Michael is attempting to find a way to create a synthetic form of the gene which provides us our special talents. Lucius has been in contact with him for nearly a year. But we were unaware of their plans until just this past week. They have been recruiting."

"Kidnapping is a better word for it," Elizabeth added. "Six people with the gene have gone missing in just a week. Those are just the ones we know of."

"Six?" John felt dizzy suddenly, and he had to screw his eyes shut and shake his head, backing away and shaking off Teyla's soft hand. "How many...I thought -- I've never met others beside Lorne and Carson. I know about Lorne's family, but -- God. How many? How many of us are there?"

He opened his eyes and Teyla was smiling at him. "More than you thought. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. Many of us are here, with Elizabeth."

"You?" John squinted at Elizabeth. "You're like us?"

"No." Elizabeth shook her head and shot him a rueful smile. "No, I'm afraid I am terribly ordinary. I simply saw danger in what Kenmore is doing and what others like him have tried in the past. That's how this place began."

Elizabeth's hands spread, her arms out as though to encompass the building as a whole. "This place is a safe haven for people like yourself. For now, the only people who know it exists are the people who live or work here. There are more, since the disappearances began."

John looked back at Teyla. "But you. You're special. You're like me."

Teyla reached out to him again, pushing his arms away from his chest in order to uncross them. She grasped one of his hands and squeezed. "I am, and we will work together, John Sheppard. We've been looking for you for a very long time."

"But why? Why now? Why not Lorne or Carson, _anyone_ but me."

"We were hoping that by gaining your trust, and by showing you what it is we have to offer, that they would follow." Elizabeth smiled. "Like I said, you're not much of a listener, are you John? Or much of a follower. I thought you might be the key to gaining the trust of the other two."

"Right," John nodded. "Okay. I can't... I'm not promising you anything."

He could feel a headache coming on, but the ache was tempered by the breathless surge of exhilaration working its way up from his gut. There were more people like him, and they'd built a huge, sky-scraping, sound-proofed building around the idea that being them, and knowing what was out there, wasn't safe.

"Lead the way," he said to Teyla, whose quiet smile turned into a beaming, gorgeous grin. She kept hold of his hand and led him down the hall.  


* * *

  
John's apartment was a hell-hole of a walk-up, and Sheppard had been predictably absent when Evan, with Zelenka in tow, had broken in.

Carson was on Sheppard-finding duty elsewhere in the city, checking John's usual I'm-hiding spots. Evan and Radek were on a break and though they hadn't found John, they had found his beer. Evan sank into the squishy embrace of Sheppard's couch, avoiding the broken bit that tended to dig into his back out of habit. He let his limbs go loose once he passed one of the beers in his hands over to Radek.

"So." Radek cracked the top off his beer and handed the bottle opener to Evan. "He does this often?"

Evan laughed, opening his own bottle and tossing the opener on the coffee table. "Yeah, he really does. Sheppard tends to wander off once the dust settles after something like this. He gets weird. Or, okay, weird _er_."

Radek drank deeply, smacking his lips in satisfaction. "Rodney was displeased."

"Well, if he plans on hanging around John Sheppard, Dr. McKay better get used to the disappearing act. I have."

Radek gave him a sideways look and said, suggestively, "Oh?"

"It's not like that," Evan said. "Sheppard's a friend, and I have nothing but platonic, friend-appropriate feelings about him. Even if I did think of him in any other way, I've been around him long enough to know better. That guy? He's a good guy, one of the best I know. But he's wound unbelievably tight and when it comes to feelings -- which he basically considers about as pleasant as land mines -- he's a mess. It's hell being his friend. I mean, he barely admits that I _am_ his friend."

"Rodney likes him very much, I think."

"He probably does. Sheppard's easy to like."

They fell quiet, nursing their beers. It was a nice silence, one that felt out of place after a day of noise and movement. McKay had thrown a fit of epic proportions after Sheppard's cell phone went unanswered. Carson had pressed a couple of sleeping pills into Rodney's palm and insisted he go home to rest. That was a load of crap, Evan knew, because Carson's fix-me-up powers didn't leave his patients with a need for rest. If anything, they had an energizing effect. But getting McKay out of the way had been good strategy. Without him there to bitch, they could focus on tracking down Sheppard. Of course, all the focus in the world couldn't help them find him. If the past had taught Evan anything, it was that if Sheppard didn't want to be found, he wasn't going to be.

Radek had offered to go home with Rodney, but the suggestion had been met with a glare. "Or maybe you want to be alone," Radek had said, hands up and eyes wide behind his glasses.

Evan thought Radek's McKay-wrangling abilities were pretty impressive. Evan had only known McKay for a day, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that McKay was one, and an eccentric, bitchy one at that. Evan wondered if it took one off-the-charts IQ to deal with another. Sheppard seemed to be able to handle McKay pretty well, current disappearance not withstanding, and Evan was pretty sure that John, however smart he was, fell into a lower, merely "very intelligent bordering on genius" percentile.

Radek looked tired now, though.

"You doing okay?"

Radek smiled. He cleaned his glasses on his shirt, blinking without them on. "You asked before. I am still fine."

"Some of the shock wearing off?"

"Ah. Yes, somewhat. It's all a little much, considering that what the three of you are capable of bends the rules quite a lot."

Evan shrugged. "Rules are meant to be broken."

"Not _these_ rules," Radek replied, eyes flashing suddenly. Evan drew back, surprised. Radek sighed and ducked his head. "I apologize. I'm not angry so much as incredibly annoyed. I feel cheated."

"Why? Because you're just normal-special, not super-special?"

That got a surprised laugh and a muttered word which probably meant something naughty in Czech.

Radek looked up, leveling Evan with an intense blue stare "I am not jealous of your little magic tricks --"

Evan sputtered a protest, but Radek talked over him

"I am happy to be very, very smart. I have no desire to be in any other way exceptional. No, I feel cheated out of the information. You see, you and your powers present a question -- no -- a problem.  It is a problem that may have no solution. The theory of your ability has no proof according to the laws physics." Radek flushed, looking suddenly bashful. "You see, I like difficult problems, and most of the time I can solve them. I could try to solve this one, but I have the feeling I would not succeed."

Evan wanted to have a reply to that, but he didn't. It wasn't like he had never considered a Great Unifying Theorem of Being a Freak -- that was his mission in life from junior high all the way up to figuring out his family weren't the only people with special abilities. In other words, some asshole called him one day and told him a half-drunk story about John Sheppard, and suddenly he wasn't alone. Later they found Carson, who at least had researched the genetic cause of whatever it was that made them tick.

Evan hadn't thought about the _why_ behind it all in a long time. But he remembered how it felt to just not get it, and could extrapolate from there to understand how someone who hadn't even been aware of the possibility might take it. Hell, before he had managed to catch up with Sheppard and before they had both met Carson, even Evan with his gifted family had felt at odds with the concept.  


* * *

  
Meeting Carson had changed the game for Evan and Sheppard -- maybe especially for Sheppard. Evan had grown up in a family full of people with superpowers. He had always figured it was hereditary. John never accepted that before Carson showed him proof.

They had been in Florida. Evan had never gotten a straight answer from Sheppard about why he was in Florida. In retaliation, Evan never gave Sheppard a straight answer about how he had managed to track Sheppard down to the Gulf coast. The day they met Carson, Evan had spent the afternoon lounging comfortably by the pool at the motel he called home while Sheppard refused to reveal where he was staying.

It was a sunny day, the sky an electric shade of blue, dotted with fat cotton-ball clouds. Evan had polished off three beers and half a pizza by evening, when he decided to peel himself off his lounge chair and make another attempt at finding Sheppard.

John had given him the slip the day before, when Evan had caught up with him along a pebbly white beach. The disappearing act had occurred several times in the week since Evan arrived in Florida. Once at the Edison-Ford winter estates, another time at a Walmart, and yet another at a tiki-themed bar located in a strip mall. Evan couldn't figure out how Sheppard was doing it. The skies down there were crystal clear, and while there plenty of places to take off inconspicuously, there was no way Sheppard wasn't going to be seen if he flew.

It begged the question -- Seriously, why Florida? Evan wheedled Sheppard about it every time he managed to orchestrate a run-in. But all the answer he ever got was a shrug and some mundane comment like, "I like the beach."

Evan found himself wandering the sprawl of suburbia, the balmy weather turning a little cooler now that the sun was down, trying to triangulate Sheppard's location based on the places they'd met over the last few days. He wandered for an hour or so, in and out of commercial and residential areas. Everything closed early here; the more he walked, the more deserted it got. It was quiet, and it was thanks to that suburban quiet that Evan heard the sound of running feet and voices shouting. The runners went right by Evan a moment later, a couple of kids -- maybe in their late teens -- taking off down the street. One of them urged the other, "Move, move! Before he catches up --"

"That guy's dead, he's dead. We --"

"Just fucking go!"

Evan took longer than he should have to get what he was hearing, and when he did he spun and ran in the direction the kids had come from. He could hear more voices now, two of them, and one of them was definitely Sheppard.

"Just a scratch," Sheppard slurred, just as Evan skidded to a halt at the mouth of an alleyway. Sheppard was propped up between a metal trashcan and a pile of cardboard. A man in a suit knelt in front of him, two hands pressed to Sheppard's abdomen. Evan ran, falling to his knees beside suit guy.

"What the fuck happened?" He demanded.

Sheppard focused bleary eyes on Evan's face. "You again."

"My rental car broke down," suit guy said, wide-eyed and panting. "I tried to find a pay phone. Cell phone died, bloody useless thing. I was being attacked -- knifepoint -- and he --"

"We need an ambulance," Evan got to his feet. "I don't carry a phone, where can we --"

"No time," suit guy snapped. "Help me get him flat."

"But --"

"I'm a doctor. Dr. Carson Beckett, pleased to meet you. Now get down here and help me."

"I got the best luck," Sheppard murmured. "Seriously. Best."

"That stab wound says otherwise," Beckett snapped. "Get his shirt up."

Evan did as he was told. "Sheppard," he was stopped cold at the sight of the wound. There was a lot of blood there, and it was a gut wound. "This is bad."

Beckett fixed him with a glare. "Be quiet," he commanded. "I'm going to fix it."

"How?" Evan glanced up at Sheppard's pale face. "You got a pocket operating room or something?"

"Better," Beckett replied.

Then he put his hands over Sheppard's torso and Evan saw, for the first time ever, something really unbelievable.

"I'll be damned," he marvelled. Beckett was wiping away blood with his bare hand, revealing smooth, unharmed skin. "You're a little different, aren't you?"

"A little," Beckett said, and sighed. "I might have just ruined your friend's life."

Sheppard was still flat on the ground, but when Evan glanced up to check on him, he looked perfectly fine. The sweat that had just a moment ago been dripping down his sheet-white face was drying. His skin had its color back.

"Did that guy just fix me?" Sheppard struggled to sit up. No one stopped him. Once he was upright, Sheppard looked from Evan to Beckett and back. "What just happened?"

"He definitely fixed you." Evan nodded. He stood once more, dusting off his hands. "Who wants a beer?"

Beckett stood too. "Wait --"

"I absolutely need a beer." John followed suit, one hand holding his shirt up, the other pressed against the place where two knife wounds used to be.

"Are you both _insane_?" Beckett exploded. "You saw what I just did, and you don't have questions?"

"Oh, buddy." Evan slapped Beckett on the shoulder. "We have so much to tell you."  


* * *

  
Someone was banging on the door, effectively jerking Evan out of his own thoughts, also letting him know he had been staring at Radek the whole time and that Radek was waiting patiently for him to snap out of it. Radek jerked at the sudden pounding noise, blushing to the roots of his hair and spilling some of his beer. He looked away from Evan and adjusted his glasses.

"I should get that," Evan said, standing up.

"Yes. Right, it could be Carson." Radek cleared his throat and fiddled with his glasses.

Evan hoped it was and that Carson had some idea what Sheppard as up to out there, or that it was Sheppard himself, if he had forgotten his keys. Evan doubted it -- they were more likely to get abducted by aliens. Sheppard never _just showed up_.

Evan opened the door. There was a flash of blue, and then nothing.  


* * *

  
Teyla took John up to the topmost floor of the building, an open space lined with huge windows and arranged around a bubbling fountain. There were a few people scattered around, reading in corners or enjoying the panoramic views from the windows. It seemed they all knew who John was; when the elevator doors opened and he and Teyla stepped out, all eyes had turned to them, the faces curious and knowing as everyone made quick exits. One woman winked at him on her way past.

"This place is pretty impressive," John remarked.

Teyla nodded, leading him to a low backless bench along one side of windows. It had gotten late, John realized; nearing dusk.

"Elizabeth is an impressive person," Teyla said. "I have found that she can accomplish many amazing things, and this place is only one of them."

"Oh?"

"She found us, which is quite the feat don't you think? You of all people understand the importance of subtlety."

John shrugged. "I keep to myself for the most part."

"Mmm. As have I." Teyla turned away from the view, her sharp eyes studying the side of John's face. He turned to face her.

"How did you get here? How did she find you?"

"Like you, I had close friends who shared my abilities. Ronon was one of them, and he met Elizabeth by chance. He never told me how she came to know of his ability, but suffice to say she asked him if he would like to work with her and he in turn came to me and suggested I meet the woman who wished to understand us." Teyla lifted her hands and shrugged. "And here we are. Of course, now our focus is less on understanding our powers and more on protecting ourselves from people like Michael Kenmore."

John leaned forward. "And him? What do you know?"

Teyla sighed heavily. "I have known Michael for a very long time. He was a good friend of mine long before I met Ronon. I never told him about my powers -- he found out accidentally."

"Let me guess," John said. "He wanted it for himself."

"That is one way of putting it." Teyla's hands twisted in her lap. "I was pregnant when Michael started talking about his plans to, as he put it, 'explore the options' when it came to my abilities. I never gave him the chance to explore anything; I met Ronon around that time, and shortly after that he met Elizabeth. We went with her and I --" Teyla looked away, back out the windows on the rosy-pink of the skyline. "I eventually stopped speaking to Michael."

John could tell from personal experience that Teyla was leaving out part of the story.

"And now?" John asked, "Michael's exploring his options now, with the people who went missing?"

Teyla nodded. "That is what we think. We assume the worst; Michael might be attempting to amass an army. He very well might be planning something more harmful, something that wouldn't leave us entirely intact. I assure you, he is capable of almost anything." She turned back to him, and John saw that she had going tighter around the eyes, and the corners of her mouth quivered when she spoke. "More than six people are missing. There are six like you and I, and several days ago the father of my child never made it home from work."

"I'm sorry --"

Teyla cut him off. "He did it in an attempt to lure me out. It has taken much restraint on my part to keep away, but I have faith that Kanaan will be safe as long as Michael thinks he is useful as bait. Besides, I am not the only one missing someone. You are aware of Lucius Lavin's series of conventions, revivals and seminars?"

"Yeah," John replied. "I've broken up a few."

"I know." Teyla reached out and touched his arm. "Please believe that had it not been for your actions, many more would be missing. But you must realize that Lucius has only allowed you to see what he wants you to see. Our research has shown at least three missing persons missing from each area within a day or so of Lucius' presence there."

John, for the first time since they met, not only let Teyla's hand slide into his, but squeezed it back. "I thought --"

"You could not have known. As far as you knew, Lucius was small-time swindler. There is nothing you could have done."

John shook his head. "I should have seen it."

Teyla sighed and pulled her hand away, patting him on the shoulder instead. "John, we don't have time to blame ourselves. I'm asking you now -- are you willing to join us, to speak with your friends, and encourage them to meet with Elizabeth? There is safety in numbers. We will need to act soon to put and end to whatever it is Lucius and Michael are planning. Are you going to help us and allow us to help you, or will you insist on going out on your own?"

"How stupid would you think I was if I tried to go after this nutcase by myself?"

Teyla smiled. "Extremely stupid."

"Right." John grinned back at her. "You're not gonna put up with my crap, are you?"

"Most likely not. But I do like you, John Sheppard, and I'd like you to be safe."

"I want to help you."

"Then," Teyla said with an air of finality, "it's settled."  


* * *

  
Rodney was laying flat on his back in the middle of his living room, Bach on the sound system he had lovingly installed last year, waiting to feel something when the banging at the door started.

"Go away!" he shouted, and fumbled for the remote by his side to up the volume on Bach. It did nothing to drown out the pounding on the door, which he allowed to continue for a few minutes before giving up and clicking off the music. Rodney hauled himself off the floor and stomped to the door. Whoever it was had better have one hell of an excuse for interrupting his power-finding time. Rodney yanked to door open and found Sheppard, fist raised to resume his incessant knocking. "It's you."

"Hey, McKay."

Rodney blinked and stared at Sheppard dumbly for a moment before shaking himself out of it and backing away to let the other man through the door. "You disappeared. I got _shot_ and you left!"

Sheppard turned in a slow circle in between the kitchen and the living room with his hands shoved in his pockets. "Nice place. Where's Zelenka?"

"Oh no!" Rodney shut the door not quite hard enough to constitute a slam. "Don't you change the subject, Wonder Boy!"

"Wonder Boy?"

"Shut up!" Rodney waved a finger in Sheppard's stupid face, wanting to reach out and wipe the stupid sly smirk off his stupid attractive mouth. "Where did you go? Beckett and Lorne seem to think it's perfectly normal for you to fuck off to who knows where after a friend gets shot in the chest -- in the _chest_ \-- but I'm not having it!"

Sheppard's face changed. He stepped toward Rodney, dragging his hands up and out of his pockets and half-reaching out as he took a step forward. "Hey," he said, "you're okay right?"

"I'm fine and pending bloodwork, possibly a big freak like you!" Rodney backed away from Sheppard's hands just as they retreated. He wanted to step forward again, let Sheppard touch him and see for himself that not even a scar remained from the two bullet holes.

"Carson explained that, then."

"Yes, he explained that!" Rodney brushed past Sheppard and into the living room. "Sit down, I guess. Where have you been?"

Rodney fell back onto the couch and watched Sheppard waffle between sitting and standing before he seemed to settle on perching on the arm of the beaten up old barcalounger Radek had brought with him when they moved into the apartment.

"I was...away. It's kind of complicated."

"Oh." Rodney huffed, "I see. Look, if you went off to meet your girlfriend or something while I was bleeding out--"

"Girlfriend? No, I don't -- I don't have one of those, McKay. Do I seem like a guy with a girlfriend?"

Rodney gave Sheppard a once-over and rolled his eyes. "Uh, yeah, Captain Pretty, you do."

"McKay, I'm gay."

Rodney froze, his brain for once not quite keeping up with the situation. "Wait. You're--No you're not!"

"Yes," Sheppard drawled, "I really am. Rodney, I took you on a date!"

"No you didn't, what are you -- _Oh._ " Rodney thought about the palisades, the cliffs and the water and the view, and felt spectacularly obtuse. "That was a date."

"Well," Sheppard was blushing, Rodney was almost sure of it. "I mean, kind of? I guess I should've asked if you're, you know."

"Also gay? Well I'm not."

"Oh."

Rodney sighed and waved a hand at John to get him to pay attention, to stop looking down at his hands like a chastised child. "That doesn't mean -- I've done stuff. With, uh. Guys. Look, this is all beside the point and awkward, which I am in no mood for. The point is you left me bleeding! And you have a man-loving crush on me, which just makes it even more shitty!"

Sheppard went from hopeful to regretful in a split second. "Yeah, I know. It's complicated. I made sure you were going to be all right before I left. I came here tonight to tell you about it and to get you to come with me to meet these people. They can help us, and keep you and Zelenka safe."

"But we are safe. No flesh wounds, no nothing. Anyway, why should I go meet these people? Oh, god, they brainwashed you, didn't they?"

The way Sheppard wasn't quite meeting Rodney's eyes was starting to freak him out.

"What's going on?" he demanded, hating how high his voice was getting. "What do you know?"

"The people I met are like me," Sheppard said. "One of them has been keeping an eye on you ever since the thing with the muggers. A woman named Elizabeth runs this place and has been keeping tabs on me, I guess. She noticed I had um...taken an interest in you. It turns out Lucius and Kenmore have been up to no good for a while, and they started worrying one of them would notice too, and come after you. So, until they could get ahold of me, they did us a favor and watched out for you."

Rodney frowned. "That's...nice, I guess. But wait, runs what place? Is it some kind of superhero camp? How did you not know about this?"

"I don't know!" Sheppard launched himself off the lounger, wiping his hands against his jeans. "I had no idea there were this many people like me. But this woman, Elizabeth Weir, she's been finding them and talking to them and most of them have come here, with her, to this... this building. They live there and they've been strategizing, trying to figure out what Lucius and Kenmore are up to. They think Lucius has  been taking people for Kenmore, but no one is really sure why. Worst case scenario the bastard is cutting them open trying to figure out what makes them tick. All those silly cults I broke up were just his way of looking for people like me and taking a few average Joes here and there along the way. God only knows what they need with normal people but it's not good."

Rodney blinked. From what he knew of Sheppard, that had been one impressive stream of words out of a usually tight-lipped mouth. Then the words fully registered.

"Jesus," Rodney dropped his head in his hands. "This is really bad."

"Yeah, it's bad." Sheppard agreed. "Six people that Dr. Weir knows are missing, probably taken. Who knows if Kenmore has other people with the gene on his payroll."

"More superpowered people, working for some bastard who is harvesting and maybe killing other super-powered people? What, is there no superhero loyalty to speak of?"

Sheppard stopped pacing, ending up in front of Rodney and looking down at him. "Well, not for these guys, I guess. There are others, over fifty, with Elizabeth. They're good people, they want to do good things with their powers."

"Like you?"

Sheppard sat next to Rodney on the couch and leaned his head back, thunking it against the wall. "Yeah, like me."

They sat in silence for a long time, which drove Rodney right to the edge of losing it. Sheppard was breathing slow and quiet next to him, his thigh brushing against Rodney's. "You know," Rodney said, "you're really lucky I'm as smart as I am. A lesser brain would go into a serious meltdown at all this new information. I mean, superpowers, evil villains, my own impending specialness, a compound full of X-men, and a mad scientist?"

Sheppard laughed on an exhale and rolled his head to look over at Rodney. "Yeah McKay, I'm lucky."

Rodney rubbed his hands absently on the sofa cushions. "So... going back to the other thing... you like me? I mean, took-me-on-a-flying-date like me?"

Sheppard's eyes, all hazel and gold-flecked and liquid, were suddenly so close, looking dark and hot right at Rodney, which was surprising and sent a wave of anticipation down Rodney's back. Sheppard's pupils were a little bit blown, and he nodded slowly. "Yeah, Rodney. I like you."

Figuring that was as much permission he would ever get, Rodney leaned forward and kissed him. Sheppard's lips were hot and dry, but soft too. John groaned into it, and Rodney sunk his teeth into Sheppard's full lower lip, nipping at it before pulling away long enough to catch his breath. Sheppard reeled him back in with a hand around the back of Rodney's neck, and his tongue slid in against Rodney's to turn the kiss wet and sloppy, all slipping tongues and catching teeth.

This was good, really good, and Rodney thought in the back of his mind that after the day he'd had he really deserved it. Sheppard broke the kiss and leaned, panting, with his forehead against Rodney's neck.

"You smell really good," he mumbled.

Rodney snorted. "Yeah, okay."

"No, really." Sheppard nuzzled his nose up to Rodney's ear and pressed his lips against the pulse point just below. Rodney shuddered then, suddenly a little dizzy, yanked away and back, pulling Sheppard with him by the collar of his black t-shirt. The back of Rodney's head hit the arm of the sofa a little hard but he ignored that because he was sprawled out on his back, legs open with Sheppard fitting between them and Sheppard's chest pressed against his own. Sheppard was hard, Rodney could feel it against his thigh. He hitched his hips up, rubbing his own erection against a sharp hipbone. Sheppard made a hot, desperate sound into Rodney's mouth, and Rodney was dizzy again even with his eyes closed.

He struggled to catch his breath, swallowing against the strange, faint feeling that kept swinging through him. "Jesus, Sheppard."

"Think you could call me John, _Rodney_. God, can we -- clothes off, we should. It's been a while, a really long while and I don't wanna come in my pants."

"Fuck," Rodney groaned and pushed up against John's chest with his hands. "Come on, get off. We're going to my bedroom now -- wait, do we have time for this?"

"Yeah. First thing in the morning we're going to see Weir, but right now --" John got to his feet fast, with the kind of balance and agility Rodney only wished he could ever possess. He pulled Rodney up by the hand though, hauling him in for another sloppy kiss. "God, I've had a long day."

"Yeah, hi, I got shot," Rodney mumbled, heading toward to hall and dragging John behind them. His head had started spinning again with that last touch of mouths and tongues. It was starting to freak him out, but he wasn't about to stop just because he was feeling a little weak in the knees, so he forced a glare at John and said "I really don't want to hear it. It's time for the life-affirming sex now."

"Oh, yeah," John murmured. Rodney opened the door to his bedroom and shoved John through it.  


* * *

  
John had tumbled Rodney to the floor before they could make it anywhere close to the vicinity of the bed, which Rodney had protested until John got their shirts off and pants open, at which point Rodney had shut up. John grinned down into Rodney's face, which had gone slack as soon as John got a hand around his dick, and bent down to lick into his open mouth, swallowing the little sounds Rodney made and moving his hand in counterpoint to the little thrusts of Rodney's hips. It was hot and clumsy, absolutely perfect, until Rodney decided he needed to touch John back.

John was on board, _so_ on board with that, lifting up so Rodney could shove at his jeans and boxers, and cooperating by moving his hand and letting Rodney yank impatiently on his hips, bringing their cocks together with just the right amount of pressure and just enough slick precome allowing them to slide and catch against each other. John groaned into Rodney's panting mouth, his eyes rolling behind his eyelids, and that was when Rodney screamed.

"Rodney? Rodney!" John was unbalanced, nearly thrown to the side by the sudden thrashing of Rodney's limbs, already bleeding from his lip from where Rodney had bitten him, definitely unintentionally because _ow_ , before the scream had ripped its way out of Rodney's chest. John managed to stay upright and on top of Rodney's legs, his thighs bracketing Rodney's twisting hips. Rodney wasn't screaming anymore, but was whimpering and trying to throw him off, to crawl away maybe, but John grabbed him by the wrists and held him still. "Rodney, stop!"

And just like that, Rodney did. He froze, his eyes flying open red, wet and wild. "What the fuck was that?"

John gaped down at him and released his wrists, "What do you mean, what was that? You just lost it on me!"

"No!" Rodney struggled to sit up, stopping to glare at John until he climbed off his hips. Once he could move freely, Rodney scrambled back and up to his feet, yanking his pants up. "I didn't just lose it, I felt like my brain was melting! And it was--It was your voice. I heard you -- you were thinking. Thinking a lot and loudly about... jesus, about a thousand --" Rodney stopped, out of breath and red-faced. "Oh god, is this a heart attack?"

John was cold with realization. "Could you --? Rodney, did you just _hear my thoughts_?"

Still struggling to breathe properly, and with two fingers pressed to his neck as though to check his pulse, Rodney shook his head. "I don't know. I think so." Then he straightened and fixed John with a narrow-eyed look, eyebrows drawing together in concentration. "But I can't hear anything now!"

"Stop looking at me like that!" John searched around Rodney's messy bedroom floor for his t-shirt. "Just so you know, this tops my list of all time greatest mood-killers."

"Your brain," Rodney sniped, "Totally just invaded my brain. And, in case you didn't know, my brain is kind of a big deal. So! Yeah, mood killed! Sorry!"

"It's not my fault--"

"Oh, but it is!"

John scoffed, found his shirt, and yanked it over his head. "Oh, really?"

"Yes!" Rodney yanked open a dresser drawer and pulled out a shirt. "My life was normal before I met you and now I've experienced a gunshot wound, possible telepathy and, and -- And my roommate has gone missing! Did I mention that? Radek? Missing!"

"He's probably with Evan and Carson, or at the school," John said reasonably. He raised an eyebrow at the 'I'm With Genius' scrawled across Rodney's chest.

"Either way, he's probably in mortal peril." Rodney headed for the bedroom door. "And as much as I would appreciate the extra funding his death would send my way, I kind of like him. Also, he pays half the rent."

John followed Rodney out to the living room and watched in dumb silence as Rodney hunted down his keys and flung open the door. "Well?" Rodney tapped his foot impatiently. "Are you coming or what?"

"Coming where?"

"We're going to your doctor pal, and then we're finding Zelenka. And then I am kind of done. With you. With all of this."

"Fine," John said, short and low. He told himself was getting sick of McKay and his drama, anyway. There was only so much bitchery he could actually take, and handjob interruptus had done nothing to help his mood. He swept his arm out, giving Rodney his best smarmy smile. "After you."  


* * *

  
"Where the hell is everybody?" Rodney growled. He punched a button on his phone and brought it to his ear. "Radek still isn't picking up."

John hung the payphone back in its receiver. "Lorne's not answering either, and Carson's cell is going straight to voicemail."

Rodney tapped his phone against his hand, eyes darting anxiously from left to right "Should we be worried, here?"

John ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up and, Rodney thought, creating a hedgehog likeness. "I don't know. I tried Carson's office land line and nothing. All we can do now is check his apartment. But I'm starting to think it'll be just as empty as the other spots we checked."

"What about the superhero commune thing?"

John snorted. "I think that's our best option, yeah."

It was getting late, and Rodney realized with a jolt that it was still the weekend. The city was always busy but now it was hopping. The sidewalk was full of people, people who had no idea that if Rodney wanted, he could read their thoughts as easy as looking them in the face.

It had been a shock, stepping out of his apartment building. There was a strange feeling in the back of his head as they walked through the halls, past the doors to other apartments -- like a vague, annoying noise. Rodney was accustomed to the loudness of his own thoughts, but it dawned on him that the noisy thoughts weren't his anymore. They reached the front door of the building, and the moment the door opened at street-level, Rodney had jerked in surprise, arms windmilling as he stumbled backward into the building, yanking John with him.

"Holy crap," Rodney had gasped. "I can hear thoughts. I really can. It's _loud_ out there."

"Look." Sheppard tried to push him all the way out the door. "You stopped hearing my thoughts, just do it again."

Rodney had glared hard at him, starting to reconsider the obviously misguided attraction he had somehow developed for Sheppard. "I didn't do that, you did. You stopped thinking."

"I did not stop thinking!"

"Then you threw me out of your stupid head! I don't know!" Rodney snapped his fingers. "Try and think at me."

Sheppard's face was blank. "What do you mean, think at you?"

"I don't know, just do it!"

John leaned forward slightly, scrunching up his eyebrows and staring hard until Rodney yelled at him to stop because he looked constipated and creepy.

"Are you even trying?" Rodney demanded.

"Of course I'm trying," John snapped. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because!" Rodney threw out his arms in frustration. "You don't seem like the let-me-share-my-thoughts guy! I don't see any other reason for it not to work. I can hear all the thoughts out there, so why not yours?"

"I don't know." John shrugged. "Maybe it's the gene."

Rodney had thrown up his hands again. "Maybe! But everyone out there is normal, unlike us, and I have no idea how to shut them out. I hate my life, have a mentioned?"

"Yeah, you mentioned. Look, you're going to have to try."

Several false starts, a couple tantrums and a migraine later and Rodney had a handle on keeping his head quiet. Oddly enough, it was a lot like tuning out boring meetings and idiotic conference speakers.

"You would not believe the things people think," Rodney muttered when he forgot himself and dropped his guard, accidentally letting the pandemonium in again.

"Oh, I think I'd believe it," said John. "It's a long cab ride to the place."

"X-men HQ," Rodney supplied.

"Whatever. Let's find an empty alley; I'll get us there."

Rodney backed away. "What? No! Why? You fly kind of slow, actually--"

"I did that time because I didn't want to freak you out. Come on McKay, we need to move. If my guys and your guy are missing, I'm thinking we have a problem."

Rodney shut his eyes and took a steadying breath. Sheppard was right. It wasn't a coincidence. He felt dizzy; he couldn't believe he was still on the same day he'd been shot -- it felt like weeks, not hours, since he woke up covered in his own blood. It was like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. The Day That Never Ended.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, find a damn alley and let's get this over with."

Sheppard nodded once before turning and heading down the street, expecting Rodney to follow. Rodney did, but he kept his distance, catching snatches of thoughts and speech from the people he passed and considering the back of Sheppard's head and the way Rodney couldn't seem to get in there. It might be the gene but Rodney doubted it -- hadn't he heard Sheppard before? He couldn't remember specifics; he had been so freaked out the information hadn't registered. But it had happened and then, abruptly as it had started, it had stopped.

Rodney rejected the theory that it was Sheppard's gene keeping Rodney from hearing his thoughts, but decided to keep that to himself. It wouldn't do to have Sheppard actively trying to keep Rodney out -- and Rodney would get back in, he told himself, just as soon as he figured out how.  


* * *

  
" _Fuj, zápach_." Radek came to slowly, unable to see in the darkness but definitely still possessing his sense of smell. Wherever he was, it reeked of rotten things and sickly sweet chemicals. His hands slipped on the slick floor when he tried to sit up, skidding through something slimy. Somewhere to his right he heard a groan. "Evan?"

A throat cleared scratchily and there was a cough before Evan replied. "Doc? Shit. Shit! Where are we?"

"I have no idea," Radek replied. He managed to get himself mostly upright, then concentrated on getting his feet under him. His body felt heavy and buzzing, as thought all his limbs had fallen asleep and were coming out of the pins-and-needles feeling. "Are you alright?"

"My head hurts like a --" Evan grunted following a squelching noise and a thump. "Ow. Now my ass hurts too. What's all over the floor?"

"I can't see in this darkness. My glasses are also missing." Radek finally managed to stand by feeling with his hands for a dry spot on the floor then crawling over to it. "I'm up now; I will look for a--"

The room flooded with flourescent light.

"Light switch?" Evan finished from where he sat on the floor. Radek could make out his blurry form and the vague shapes of puddles. "Hang on, I found your glasses."

Radek reached out his hand and watched as Evan struggled up and forward. He took his glasses by feel and slipped them on. Radek cursed under his breath. One of his lenses was cracked, and now that he could get a look at their surroundings he wished the lights had never turned on.

"What the hell is this?" Evan murmured, looking from the walls to the floor then to Radek. "Kenmore. Has to be."

It was clearly some sort of lab, but it had been stripped of anything that wasn't bolted down. There was a metal table in the center of the room and a long counter along the wall. These were cleaned to a shine, but the floors were a mess. Streaked with dirt and mystery fluids, it was scuffed and scarred with marks from chemical spills. The walls were only somewhat visible -- institutional gray -- under a mass of veiny material. The door, across the room from the gleaming countertops, wasn't a door at all. Evan crossed to it, examining the web-like covering and testing it with his hands and feet.

"Again I say, _what the hell_?"

Radek leaned close to one wall and poked the material covering it with one finger. "It's some kind of organic material, I think. It looks as though it's growing over the wall but I don't think so." He peeled at the edge, shoving his fingernails between the smooth wall and the knots of soft material. "See? It's peeling off."

"What about this slimy junk?" Evan pointed at the floor, then twisted to check the back of his jeans. "It's all over us. Christ, I hope it's not toxic."

Radek crouched down and scooped the greyish slime with two fingers. "I don't want to smell this."

"Then definitely don't," Evan said. "I don't even want to know."

"It looks..." Radek squinted at the goo, feeling his stomach turn. "It looks like brain matter. _Moj boze_."

Evan went grey-faced and turned away. "Don't say that. We don't need to think about that."

Radek didn't say anything, but he started to reconsider the streaks of dirt, which were more a rust color than a brown. He refused to start looking for bone fragments.

"We need to get out of here," he said, not looking at the floor anymore.

"Yeah," Evan agreed. He started feeling around the doorway, then stuck his arm through a small opening in the webbing to feel around outside it. "There's a room across from this one, with a normal door. It has a keypad next to it. I think there's one outside this one too, but I can't reach it."

"Which side?"

"My right."

Radek crossed over to the doorway. "You're certain you can't reach? What about --" He gestured to his own forehead, then waved a hand at Evan. "Mind-move it!"

"Yeah, tried." Evan sighed. "Not working. I definitely can't reach the box. I can get to the edge of it if I over-stretch, but that's it."

"So it's about an arm's length away from the doorway?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Radek prodded the wall over the place where the keypad mechanism must be. "Do you have anything in your pockets? Did they take everything?"

Evan slapped his hands over his front and back pockets. "Yeah, I think so. Wait--"

Radek watched him unlace one boot and yank it off to shake it over the floor. A key fell out and hit the floor with a _ping_. "It's not much but...What did you have in mind?"

Radek held out his hand for the key. "I have nothing in mind. We can use this to get through whatever is on these walls. We might find something."

Evan nodded, grim faced. "Let's hope, huh?"

Radek tossed the key back. Finding anything under the sponge-like material was unlikely, but Radek wasn't going to sit in what was potentially someone else's viscera and wait to meet a similar end. "Hold that. For now we use fingers to peel." He found a break in the veiny wall covering and started pulling at it. Evan came to help him and their shoulders pressed together as they worked at the stuff.

"Should we be concerned that your abilities could not open the door?"

"No," Evan replied. "I don't know how it locks, so I don't know how to fiddle with it. Weirdest door I've ever seen. Plus, whatever they used to knock us out has me a little fuzzy."

They worked at the wall in silence for several minutes. Radek's fingers kept slipping, and were already starting to cramp slightly. He took a moment to readjust his glasses and crack his knuckles before going back to the wall.

"Sorry about all this," Evan said after a few silent minutes passed. The material was hard to keep a grip on, and strangely prickly in places. They had managed to get a tiny lip of it off the actual wall.

Radek jerked his fingers away as something in the material dug into the fleshy pad of his thumb. "No need to apologize," he said. "This? It's fun to me. Really."

Evan snorted and went back to the slow work of peeling.  


* * *

  
"I hate you."

John rolled his eyes. "Thanks, McKay. We'll talk about that later. For now we need to get in there."

"I'm starting to think you're a little full of it!" Rodney smacked a hand against the glass door of the building. "No one is here!"

"They're here, damn it!"

"Then why hasn't anyone come down, huh? The lobby is dark. This looks like any old corporate monster and nothing like a superhero collective. We're screwed and our friends are missing!"

John tightened his hands into fists. He definitely shouldn't punch McKay in the jaw. For one thing, it was probably bad form to hit the guy you had just had almost-sex with. For another, John didn't really blame him. He was starting to question his own sanity. Sure, he had been to this building earlier. And sure, Elizabeth and Ronon and Teyla and the other people running around had seemed pretty serious, and the tour had been legit enough. But there was always the possibility of Lucius setting it up as some elaborate way to screw with John's head.

"Just --" John took a deep breath. "Let's find the alley behind the place and --"

"And what? Fly to the roof?"

Well yeah, John had pretty much picked that as the best course of action. "Look --"

"John?"

Both men whirled at the voice. Teyla stood a couple feet away, a baby on her hip and a multitude of bags over one arm.

"Teyla," John sighed. "Good. We're --"

"You mustn't be seen," Teyla said quickly. "Please. Get away from the building. Find somewhere discreet and meet me on the roof."

John nodded, taking the urgency in Teyla's voice seriously. Behind him, Rodney groaned. "Okay. See you in a minute."

"Hurry," was all Teyla said. She didn't move, and for a moment neither did John. Teyla raised one lovely eyebrow at him and he lurched into action, grabbing Rodney by the elbow.

"Let's go, McKay."

"But why --"

"Don't worry about it."

"But --"

"McKay, _move_."

"Fine."

They stumbled off, John dragging Rodney behind him. John didn't look back until they reached a sidestreet, and when he did Teyla was already gone. He got a good grip around Rodney's waist, then took off.  


* * *

  
It was windy up on the roof. John let Rodney down less gently than he could have, and Rodney tripped over his own momentum. "You're a jerk."

"And you need to get it together," John snapped. "Enough questions and enough bitching. This is serious now, McKay. I can't have you --"

"I am not listening to this." Rodney threw up his hands, walking aimlessly away from Sheppard. He had no idea where he expected to go. A little access door was situated clear on the other side of the roof, so he headed in that direction. He didn't particularly care if John chose to follow him.

"McKay!"

"Shut up!"

"Damn it, just --"

"No!" Rodney turned around and almost smashed into John, who had caught up to him with annoying ease. "Just leave me alone. You have effectively ruined me over the course of a day, and now you're somehow pissed at me? Excuse me for being less than thrilled at the day's events. My roommate is missing, I'm telepathic, I know what a bullet wound feels like and I have windburn. In short, Sheppard, bite me!"

John snorted. "Jesus, McKay."

Rodney looked on, disbelieving, as Sheppard started smiling. He was fighting it, his face twitching unattractively against the grin. It made Rodney angry.

"Don't laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing at you, Rodney. It's just. You're so. Well..." John trailed off. There was a metal-on-metal noise and Rodney turned to find the woman from the sidewalk leaning out of the access door.

"Come quickly," she called. The baby from earlier was absent, and for a second Rodney wondered about that. What if these super-people were harvesting children to run freaky super-experiments on? What if they were really buddies with that creep Lavin, and all of this was a trap?

John gripped Rodney by the upper arm and tugged him forward, steering him to the access door and Teyla-the-possible-baby-stealer.

"Wait --" Rodney managed, but cut himself off when the door slammed behind them and Teyla led them down a flight of stairs.

She talked quickly as they followed, John hauling Rodney along. "I apologize. Normally someone would be posted at the door, however recent events have prompted increased security measures. Staff and residents are limited to specific floors for the time being."

"Recent events?" John finally let go of Rodney's arm as Teyla led them through a set of labyrinthine hallways.

Teyla glanced over her shoulder. "Three of our people were taken today."

"Jesus," Sheppard said. "We're missing three of our friends --"

"Mr. Lorne and Dr. Zelenka, yes." Teyla turned a corner. "Dr. Beckett is with us; he informed us of their disappearance moments ago."

"Oh, God." Rodney groaned. "Radek."

"Please," Teyla stopped in front of a set of elevator doors. "We will share everything we know with you. We are already doing everything we can to locate them."

"How long?" John asked as they loaded into the elevator and the doors slid silently shut. "Do we know when they were taken?"

"Our best guess is five hours ago." Teyla rested one hand on each of their arms. "We will find them."

"Yeah," Rodney said grimly. "And then we're burning Kenmore and Lavin to the ground."

John shot him a startled look. Rodney met his gaze steadily, unflinching and suddenly acutely aware of how dangerous this was and how little that scared him. He tried not to be too pleased with himself.

"This is personal," Rodney said. "And it ends now."

"Okay," John said, nodding. "Yeah."

Teyla smiled at them both. "Very good, gentlemen."

The elevator dinged open and Rodney forgot his bravery for a second because there was a guy on the other side whose hands were on fire.  


* * *

  
Evan slid one hand across the floor, finding Zelenka's bony wrist and circling his fingers around it. The lights had gone off, putting a stop to their attempts at clearing the wall. It had been a couple of hours and they had been getting tired and frustrated anyway; a break would have become necessary sooner or later. Evan just wished they didn't have to take it in pitch blackness.

"Evan?" Radek's voice was close. The sound of scuffling movement followed it and the warmth of his arm pressed against Evan's. "Are you alright?"

"Sure," Evan said as cheerfully as he could muster. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"For starters, I think you are trying to hold my hand."

Evan started and pulled his fingers away from Radek's wrist. "Oh, hey. Sorry about that."

"It's not a problem. The dark bothers you?"

It really, really did. But Evan snorted in derision and said, "No. I'm not afraid of a little dark."

"Of course not," Radek agreed. "The dark does not bother me much either. Our house was often dark growing up. We used candles until an unfortunate fire incident. Afterward we learned not to mind the darkness so much."

Evan shifted against the wall they were leaning against. "Yeah? Was it a bad fire?"

Radek made a non-committal noise. "Is any fire a good fire?"

"True. I set my grandmother's kitchen on fire, once. I was playing around making the dish towels fly and one of them dragged right through a lit burner on the stove."

Radek shifted too, bringing their arms closer together and sliding one hand so their pinkies touched as well. He chuckled, "And how did your grandmother feel about that?"

"She'd already known it was going to happen. She's psychic. Never used it to stop me from doing stupid things, just knew when to grab the fire extinguisher or have band aids on hand."

Radek laughed again, the vibrations nice against Evan's shoulder. "My own grandmother wasn't psychic and yet she always knew when I was about to harm myself in one idiotic fashion or another."

"Yeah, I think that's universal."

They went quiet, listening to the sounds around them. They hadn't heard any people since waking in the lab. There was a whirring noise, presumably from ventilation systems in the ceiling -- not that they could see any vents in the ceiling -- and strange echoes of mechanical clicks from somewhere down the hall. There was also, every once in a while but with no discernible pattern, the sound of air being released, like air brakes on a truck or bus. The whirring, clicking and whooshing filled the quiet dark.

Evan sighed. "This place is creepy as hell and I'm ready to get out of here."

Radek hmm-ed his agreement. "What are the odds of the others rescuing us?"

"Anytime soon? Really slim. Carson might figure out we're gone but then he'll have to find Sheppard who is either still missing or putting the moves on your roomie."

In the dark, Evan couldn't see Radek's face but he was sure it was twisted with distaste. "I don't need to think about that," Radek muttered. "So. We get ourselves out or we are doomed to wait forever?"

"Pretty much."

Radek leaned his shoulder more heavily against Evan's. For now, in the dark, there was nothing to be done. Whenever the lights came on again, they would decide how to go about a great escape. Radek closed his eyes and settled in to wait.  


* * *

  
They found Carson with Teyla's baby on his knee, talking to a hulking guy with flames shooting out of his fingertips. The baby squealed and giggled at the mini-pyrotechnics; Rodney's jaw dropped.

"That guy's hand is on fire. Also, I think I know him. He's the yeti!"

Fire guy turned at that and waved one smoking hand. "Oh. Hey, Dr. McKay."

"You've met Ronon?" Sheppard raised an eyebrow at him.

"No. Yes?" Rodney shrugged. "He's taking Radek's calculus class."

"Auditing," Ronon corrected.

"Carson," John nodded. "You okay?"

"My office is covered in blood, my apartment was ransacked, one of my closest friends is missing along with Dr. McKay's roommate, and I'm suddenly in danger of being kidnapped by a madman." Carson handed the baby over to Teyla and stood up to clap John on the back. "Aye, you could say I'm okay."

"Sorry about --" John waved a hand as though encompassing a weekend's worth of major upsets with the flick of a wrist.

"No worries," Carson said, giving John's shoulder a squeeze.

Rodney sighed. "Right. We're all okay, except for the part where we're not. I would demand to be told where I am and who the hell you people are --" he gestured to the dozen or so people loitering around the room. "-- but I don't care. I want my roommate back. Right now. He's short and odd-looking, he's totally after my grant money and most of his theories are half-baked nightmares -- but he's my friend and he's not getting cut up by some mad idiot with an inferiority complex."

"And we won't allow that," said a woman in a sharply tailored suit, stepping through the parting crowd. "Dr. McKay, my name is Elizabeth Weir. I'm glad you're here. Dr. Beckett tells us you may begin exhibiting the effects of gene activation --"

"Oh, I've started --" Rodney cut himself off, realizing he hadn't heard a single thought in the building. "Wait."

He stopped and concentrated on Weir, letting go of the tight block he had managed to put up earlier. For a moment, nothing came. Maybe he just couldn't access the thoughts of other gene carriers. Maybe the ability was temporary. Maybe --

And then, like the clicks and whirrs of a laptop waking from sleep mode, Rodney felt a new part of his brain switch on. It hadn't felt like this before, but it was happening now and this time Rodney was ready for it. Quietly, Elizabeth's voice reached him. Her lips weren't moving. In fact, she was watching him curiously, eyes slightly narrowed. But Rodney could hear her.

_I wonder what it is, what he can do. God, let me help him, let him help us. We need all the help we can get and I can't let anyone else die. No. No one is dead yet. Anyone else go missing missing -- not dead -- missing --_

Rodney drew back and it was natural to stop the flow of her thoughts reaching his mind. "Sorry," he mumbled. He cleared his throat. "I was going to say, I started -- ah, exhibiting abilities. Earlier."

He tried not to look at Sheppard when he said that but his eyes darted over of their own volition. John just nodded.

"Rodney's hearing thoughts," he provided helpfully.

The room seemed to draw back at that. Rodney remembered he was still frustrated and freaked out and put his hands up. "Everybody relax! I figured out how to block it, and I'm doing that now. I'm not listening." He paused, looking around the room. "So, I guess none of you can read minds?"

"Ah, no," Elizabeth said. "I have to say that's a new one."

"Aw, McKay." Sheppard smirked at him. "You're unique."

"Yes." Rodney glared. "Fine. Now back to Zelenka and that Lawrence guy --"

"Lorne," John corrected.

"Lorne. Sorry. I can see you're doing some kind of circling the wagons thing --" Rodney indicated the room at large. "But do you have any plan, or even any idea where they are?"

"We think we have a lock on Kenmore," said a blonde woman from her perch on a reception desk. "It's getting in that'll be a problem."

Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a migraine coming on. "And how bad is it?"

"Yeah," John interjected. "Are we talking armed guards? Security systems? Dogs? What am I dealing with here?"

Teyla placed a hand on his arm. " _We_ will deal with it -- together."

Rodney watched Sheppard shuffle his feet and look away from the group. He was starting to realize that John Sheppard was more than just a loner; he was incapable of accepting help. Rodney didn't know if that was a sign of stupidity or just the result of layer upon layer of trust issues. Either way, he didn't have time for it.

"Look," he snapped. "Maybe you thought you were flying in guns blazing on a mad man who is amassing a genetically altered mini-army, and maybe you thought you could do it alone. You can't. Now you -- we -- have our own mini army." Rodney glanced at Elizabeth, whose lips had pursed in silent amusement. "So suck it up, say thank you and let's get this done."

John stared at Rodney, silent and inscrutable. Rodney tsked at him and turned to Elizabeth. "Alright. Tell me you have a decent tech set up in this place. I assume you have some intelligence on this guy's lair? If I'm going to hack his systems and develop a work around I need to start yesterday."

"Yes," Elizabeth looked around the room. "We'll get you set up, Dr. McKay. But first I think we could all use a briefing on the situation. The main conference room in ten minutes? I'll see everyone there."

Rodney watched her go, three people following and whispering at her on the way out.

"Dr. McKay." Teyla took his arm with her free hand. The baby had fallen asleep against her shoulder. "Perhaps you would like the short version of the story of this place. Unless John has already filled you in?"

Rodney looked over at Sheppard and Beckett, heads bent together in quiet conversation. "Sheppard wasn't that forthcoming with the details. I suppose I know the basics --"

"In that case, come along. I must take Torren to bed before the meeting begins and I thought I might get some tea for myself."

"Tea? Do you have coffee?"

Teyla smiled gently and patted Rodney on the shoulder, which was both weird and nice. "Of course," Teyla said and Rodney found it in him to smile back at her.  


* * *

  
Four hours later Rodney stumbled down a hall held up on either side by Teyla and Ronon. Rodney had learned their names fast -- he got the impression that one yeti reference would end in his fiery death, and Teyla was sort of impossible to forget. It was three in the morning and Rodney had spent the last hours holed up in a lab with Miko, an anxious but definitely brilliant woman who turned out to be scary good at hacking, and the blonde woman who had spoken earlier. She was called Cadman, and Rodney would never forget her name because after he asked her what her freakish power was, she had placed one finger on his empty coffee mug and it had disintegrated into dust a split second later.

She was also sharp as a tack even if she was obnoxious as hell, and while Rodney didn't like her much he had to admit to respecting the wicked twists and turns she took through Kenmore's surveillance programs. Plus she could make stuff disintegrate. Rodney definitely respected _that_. Miko had only flushed and mumbled when Rodney turned to her to ask about her ability. Cadman hadn't chimed in, just shrugged and smiled indulgently while Miko started ignoring them both and went about flicking on the machines around the room.

After an hour of the three of them talking over each other, Cadman and Miko rushing to give Rodney more information than he could process, he had put up a hand and shouted at them to shut up. Miko closed her mouth with a click; Cadman had narrowed her eyes, sending a shiver of panic down Rodney's spine.

"Look, don't disintegrate me or anything," he rushed to say. "But this isn't getting us through any faster. It might be easier if I listen to you another way."

"You mean invade our minds," Cadman said flatly. "Not a chance."

"Look. It'll cut our time in half and mean less chance for error. I could easily do it without your ever knowing but... I won't do it without your permission."

After fifteen minutes of arguing back and forth with Cadman -- Miko had just nodded her permission from the start -- they were finally working again, with Rodney tuned in on what the other two were thinking. It had certainly helped the speed of their work, but it had still taken longer than Rodney liked.

Sheppard had disappeared with Teyla, Ronon and Elizabeth after the briefing, apparently to discuss strategy with a chunk of the group. Carson had gone off too, with someone named Keller and a bunch of people who apparently made up a medical staff of sorts. Rodney saw no one other than Cadman and Miko until Teyla and Ronon showed up to escort him to bed.

"Sleep is not an option," Rodney protested even as he yawned, popping his jaw.

"We will be of no help to our friends if we are exhausted," Teyla told him. She was sleepy-eyed and drawn herself. Ronon appeared to be holding up better than any of them, but he grunted his agreement.

"Where's Sheppard?" Rodney asked as Teyla unlocked a door with a key card.

She pressed the card into his hand. "John is the next door to the right. I have already seen him in. Sleep, Dr. McKay. You will need your rest."

"Right," Rodney mumbled, pocketing the keycard. "Thanks. You're a nice lady."

Teyla smiled warmly at him. It was less unnerving now; Rodney wasn't used to people smiling all over him, and usually that kind of thing was more sharp-edged and often preceded gift-wrapped lemons left on his desk. From Teyla, who was small but strong, beautiful and intelligent, politic but genuine, it was comforting -- not quite motherly, but something.

"You too," Rodney added before crossing the threshold into his room. He slapped at Ronon's shoulder.

"Nice lady, that's me." Ronon returned the back pat, effectively knocking Rodney into the room.

They said goodnight and Rodney waved absently over his shoulder, stumbling toward the bed.  


* * *

  
John was startled awake by a rhythmic thumping at his door. It wasn't very loud, but there wasn't much John would sleep through. He rubbed at his eyes until he could make out the numbers on the digital clock next to the bed. It was just past four, which meant he had only been asleep for two hours.

Hauling himself out of bed -- it wasn't the most comfortable, a little saggy -- John stumbled toward the door. Elizabeth told him they were full up as of that night, but that she would see about expanding overnight accommodations if they needed to stay any longer. John really hoped he wouldn't need to. His apartment wasn't the Four Seasons, but this place gave him the creeps. It wasn't a bad place; plenty of people, all of them with this weird thing in common, and everyone seemed to get along just fine. John just couldn't see himself doing the whole communal living thing, no matter how much he liked some of these people.

He made it to the door just as the thumping started to escalate to full blown knocking. He fumbled at the knob, his fingers heavy and uncoordinated. When he finally got the thing open, he nearly ended up knocked in the head by Rodney's raised fist.

"Oh." Rodney blinked, looking just as sleepy and disheveled as John felt. "So this _is_ where they put you."

"Yeah," John's voice scratched. He cleared his throat. "Problem, McKay?"

"I --" Rodney shifted a little in the doorway. "Can I come in? I can't seem to stay asleep and I want to talk to you."

"Can't it wait? We're breaking into the mad scientist's lair in less than two hours, you know."

Rodney sighed. "I know that. I'm just. It's really nerve-wracking, all this -- stuff."

John stepped aside, motioning for Rodney to come in. He figured he might as well take pity on the guy; Rodney looked exhausted and even more freaked out than he had earlier.

Rodney dropped down on the bed, the only place to sit in the room, and John shut the door and stood by it, on uneven footing and at a loss or something to say. The day before, Rodney had been a pretty normal guy. A week before, for all he knew John had been a weird hallucination. Now he was a freak of nature with a missing roommate and his llife in danger.

That was all pretty much John's fault. As annoyed as he had been with Rodney over the last day, John couldn't shake the guilt weighing him down. The most difficult part of the whole situation was that he still _liked_ Rodney. Still wanted to be touching him, even though Rodney had said he was done.

"Hey," John said softly, pushing off the door. Rodney had his head in his hands, his shoulders hunched over and his back bowed. "It's going to be okay."

"You don't know that." Rodney's voice was muffled through his hands.

"Yeah, okay. So I'm thinking positive." John sat next to him on the bed and placed an awkward hand on his shoulder. The muscles under Rodney's t-shirt were knotted tight. John squeezed. "I'm sorry about all of this."

Rodney sighed. "It's not like you meant for it to happen. Sorry I yelled at you. And bit your lip."

John ran his tongue over his lower lip; it had stopped bleeding pretty easily and it barely even hurt anymore. "That's okay."

Rodney had dropped his hands from his face and now he was looking at John. "I can't hear your thoughts."

"Can't say I'm sorry about that," John said, and he really wasn't.

"But --" Rodney gestured vaguely at John's face. "You're so _difficult_. I don't get you. You kind of like me, you're sick of me, you're sorry, you're not. You're a mess, and you freely admit it, but I know next to nothing about you. If I could just --"

"Rodney." John squeezed his shoulder again then tugged, forcing Rodney to rock sideways just enough to bring his mouth close enough to kiss. "I do like you. I'm sorry your life's a mess. I'm not sorry you can't get inside my head because it's nowhere you want to be. Shut up now."

"Yes." Rodney nodded. "Okay, I'll --"

John leaned forward, and Rodney stopped talking. John kept his lips an inch away from Rodney's, waiting for Rodney's eyes to drift shut before pressing in for a kiss. Before John could relax into it, Rodney's eyes flew open and he pushed John away gently with one hand. "But wait --"

"What now?" John sighed.

"Why not your thoughts?" Rodney asked quietly. His head was still tilted down, keeping his mouth within kissing distance. With every word, hot breath gusted across John's cheek. "I can hear everyone, but not you, except for when it first kicked in. I don't get it."

John shifted and their noses brushed. This close up, John could see the subtle freckles on Rodney's cheeks but didn't have to make eye contact. "I'm not sure why. You were right, earlier, when you said I'm not the sharing type. Maybe that's it."

"Someone's sure of himself," Rodney scoffed. "So, what, you're just that repressed? The severity of your inability to talk about your thoughts and feeling trumps my superpower?"

John couldn't help it; he laughed a little before closing the distance between them. "'M not repressed, Rodney," he said and kissed him.

Rodney responded quickly, working John's lips apart, tracing between them with his tongue, and John almost pulled away in surprise. Even if he had wanted to, which he definitely didn't, he couldn't have; Rodney kept pushing forward, knocking John back across the mattress and tangling their legs together, framing John's face with his hands and wow -- whether this was a crisis thing, or just how Rodney was in bed, John was on board. Rodney had him covered, shoulders to feet, his tongue was basically fucking John's mouth, and a second later he had their hips pressed together just right.

John groaned into Rodney's mouth. Rodney sat up, straddling John's waist, to get his t-shirt off then he yanked John up to do the same for him.

"Wow, Rodney," John gasped. "In a hurry?"

"Well, obviously," Rodney said shortly, getting to work on John's shorts. "Don't think we're not going to talk about the thoughts thing -- we so are -- but we have to go save the day soon so we need to prioritize. Unfortunately, this is going to have to be quick. But I need this, and I think you need it. We need this, right?"

John lifted his hips so Rodney could get his boxers off for him, then sat up on his elbows to watch Rodney finish undressing.

Then they were naked. John sprawled on the saggy bed with a spring digging into his back, and Rodney standing there hard and panting, staring at John like he didn't know what he was doing there, or just not knowing what to do first.

"Come here," John said. His voice broke a little, dragged up and out of his throat through the fear and nerves.

"Yeah, I --" Rodney crawled back onto the bed and covered John's body with his again, skin touching skin all over this time.

John shuddered. He would never admit it out loud to anyone, but he was so starved for this. He didn't know how long it had been since someone touched him with intent, and he definitely had no idea when he'd last been naked with another person. God, Rodney was right, he really needed this. He shivered again and wrapped an arm and a leg around Rodney, hooking his ankle around Rodney's calf and letting his arm drape over Rodney's broad back. He threaded his other hand through the short strands of soft hair at the back of Rodney's head and pulled him down for a wet, messy kiss.

"Yes," John muttered into Rodney's mouth. "Yeah, _Rodney_."

He pushed his hips up, trying for friction and getting it, but not enough. His cock slid in the sweat-slick crease of Rodney's thigh, his hipbone bruising with the hard pressure Rodney returned with his own desperate little thrusts. Rodney jerked back, their lips separating with a hot smacking sound. John let his eyes slide open slow to match the next up-twist of his hips.

Rodney blinked down at John, blue eyes wide. He let out a breathless little laugh and kissed the tip of John's nose, which was weird, and shifted to line them up better. John gasped at the silk-smooth slide of their cocks together and tilted his head up, seeking out Rodney's mouth. Rodney laughed again, this time right into John's mouth before he licked, teasingly, and his bottom lip.

"You like this," Rodney murmured. "You need this, I know. John, I _know_."

John thought, _Mouth, mouth, want your mouth on me._

Rodney said, "Yes. That. Good idea."

John tried to parse that while Rodney wriggled down his body, lips trailing hot and teeth leaving stinging little nips along the way. Rodney sucked John's cock into his mouth and John gasped, forcing himself up on his elbows.

"Fuck, you heard me. Didn't you?"

Rodney hummed around his dick and swirled his tongue around the head. John groaned and almost let it go, almost gave in to the urge to let his head fall back on the mattress. But he thought _No, wait --_ and tried to sit up more.

Rodney licked from John's balls to the sensitive spot in the crease of his thigh before surging back up, using his hands to push and hold John down. "Don't freak out."

"You can hear my thoughts," John gasped. "When we're -- when I'm --"

"Yeah," Rodney answered. He pressed his mouth to the skin beneath John's ear and left a sucking bite there. "Looks like I can. Please, don't make me stop touching you just because --"

"Rodney --"

"Please," Rodney pushed his hips into John's. "Come on, John. I need it too, I've been so -- and you're _so_ \--" He broke off, laughing again.

John knew Rodney must have heard him thinking: _He can't even talk. God, we're so fucking doomed._

"Doomed," Rodney echoed. "Yes. But also --" He reached down, circling his fingers around the base of John's cock and squeezing. "Not."

John thrust up into the grip and tried not to want to keep going. His whole body shook with it. Rodney looked down at him, his hair stuck with sweat to his forehead, his eyes unfathomably sexy with need.

Rodney said, "Do you want to stop? I'll stop if you want me to stop." He let his head drop, breaking eye contact. "I get it, you know, if you don't want me in your head. Trust me, I get that it's weird that this is apparently the only time I can hear your thoughts. I can try to block it out, but I don't want to do this if you're going to be busy trying to shut me out the whole time."

John thought about it for a second, weighing it out. It was risky, but then again what wasn't risky anymore? John made himself meet Rodney's eyes, then shook his head. "No. I don't want you to stop. Don't stop."

Rodney nodded, but seemed frozen still, his face hovering just above John's.

"Rodney?"

"Yeah?"

John wiggled his hips, and Rodney hissed out through his teeth. "Don't worry about blocking it out. Want you focused."

"Okay. Focused." Rodney kissed him hard. "Don't go pretending I'm someone else or anything, or I'll know."

John laughed, a little shocky. Rodney started working his way with teeth and tongue back down John's body. John held onto him by the hair and said, "Not a chance."  


* * *

  
Radek jerked, startled awake by a new sound. It was dark in the room, but the hallway outside was lit, casting barely enough light to make out the figures entering the room. Beside him, Evan struggle to sit up from where he had slept.

"Tranquilize them," a voice ordered.

Radek struggled against the hands that grabbed his arms, yanking him up, but they were nearly twice his size and fighting got him nowhere.

"Zelenka--" Radek could hear the strain in Lorne's voice. He was struggling too, Radek could see by the undulating shadows, and from the sound of it having better luck than Radek had. Whoever was holding him grunted as one booted foot made contact with a kneecap. Radek surprised himself by feeling very satisfied at the crunching sound.

There was a cry, then a gruff voice shouting, "He has a weapon, take care of that one and help me--"

Radek resumed his struggles, knowing he was "that one" and not wanting to know what it meant to be "taken care of." The man holding his left arm laughed and stomped hard on Radek's foot.

"Hold still now," the one to his right murmured, his words distorted by something clenched in his teeth. There was a sting at Radek's neck.

He had time to think _Ah, syringe cap,_ before the world became a pinhole.  


* * *

  
Evan growled when Radek dropped to the floor. He decided it was time to stop playing nice, not that he had been holding back exactly -- damn, these bastards were strong. He wasn't going to avoid getting knocked out, he knew that in his gut.

He was going to kill these guys _extra_ hard when he woke up, though. Personal code of ethics be damned, he was done with this shit. He got a couple kicks in, wished he could get an arm free and make things really interesting. The behemoth holding his arms was like steel though, and it just wasn't happening.

If there was more light, if he could just see where they had the needle -- had to be a needle, the first one to speak had said "tranquilize" hadn't he? He could get a hold of it if he could just see it, send it stabbing into one of them with a thought. The one holding him now had batted the key out of Evan's hand after he went at the guy's face, and he had heard it clink against the floor.

Another couple of seconds and Evan's struggling became just as useless. Four against one in the dark, not even Sheppard could beat those odds. _Well,_ Evan thought, _yeah, he could. Jerk._

The pinch of the needle near his jawline made him wince. "Fuck."  


* * *

  
When Evan came to again his head pounded worse than it ever had the morning after too much scotch with Carson. He was strapped down, which he realized when he tried to raise a hand to rub at his aching head. His arms were spread out to the sides, strapped at the wrists and forearms. There was a strap holding his head down, and another around his chest, more around his legs and ankles.

He groaned, trying to look around. All he could see was a ceiling not unlike the one in the room where he and Zelenka had woken up.

"Oh good, you're awake."

Evan couldn't turn his head to look for the source of the voice, so he tried his best to slide his eyes over. The shadow of a man was just barely visible in his peripheral vision.

"Kenmore."

The man said nothing to that, though Evan didn't really need him to.

"Your friend is of little use to me," the faceless shadow said. "But you? You're another story."

"For what, exactly?" Evan panted, still trying to get an arm or leg free. "Looking for a date? Sorry, don't think you're my type."

"You don't know why you are here? Come now, I know you're smarter than that."

"Right." Evan strained against the straps holding him in place, mostly for show; he knew he wasn't getting up on his own. "So where's your pal Lucius? Watching? Out taking advantage of women, or is it stealing from the elderly this time?"

"Mr. Lavin is not your concern."

Evan snorted. "Beg to differ. So what now? Gonna cut me open?"

"Not exactly," Kenmore stepped forward from the shadows and if he could have, Evan would have recoiled.

"Nice face," he said, sounding breathless despite all efforts to remain cool. Kenmore was not the fair-haired, objectively attractive man Evan had met before -- and how long had it been now? At least a day. Whatever he had done to himself had worked quickly. His skin had gone a ghastly grey, his veins prominent at his neck and temples, darkened and bruised.

"Ah." Kenmore brought a hand up to his own jaw. "Yes. All great things come with a price."

He stepped closer. Evan didn't let himself flinch.

"I won't need to wait for much longer," Kenmore said softly. His hand ran over something out of Evan's sightline. Metal clicked against metal. Evan swallowed convulsively, thinking of the mystery goo on the floor of the other room.

"So," he said conversationally. "You manifest any powers yet? I doubt it, or I wouldn't be here, would I?"

"Sadly, you are correct. " Kenmore fiddled with whatever it was Evan couldn't see. The sharp clang of it falling against a tray nearly startled him enough to cause a full-body jerk. "But my research -- and it is important research, Mr. Lorne -- has led me to an even more exciting avenue of discovery. Perhaps I cannot become as you are, as your gifted friends are, but I may be able to use you in different ways. You see, you are about to become a part of something new and thrilling. Doesn't that just get you --" Kenmore lunged, and something sharp pressed hard to the left side of Evan's chest. "Right _here_?"

Evan did flinch then, hissing through his teeth. He couldn't tell if skin had been broken; it hadn't hurt so much as startled him. "Not really. I'm just not getting off on the wonders of discovery, here."

"You know, Mr. Lorne," Kenmore murmured, softly enough that Evan had to strain to hear even this close. "I hadn't planned to do anything with you once I had you."

He shuddered. Up close Kenmore was truly horrifying to look at. Evan blinked away the fear. "Can't resist a pretty face, huh?"

"Do you always joke?" Kenmore didn't wait for an answer. "I hoped you would serve as useful bait. To be honest, your particular ability, while useful, is not one I am interested in pursuing in terms of medical research at this time."

Evan gulped. Nothing there sounded good. "Bait? You were hoping to lure Sheppard, then?"

"Talented and intelligent, just as I thought," Kenmore said as though congratulating a small child on reciting the alphabet. "Mr. Sheppard has failed to appear. I expected him to make an entrance much sooner. But I have faith, as I am sure _you_ have faith, that he will come looking for you. In the meantime, I suppose we shouldn't let you go to waste, hm?"

Evan squeezed his hands into fists and clenched his jaw hard to block the sound of frustration and fear that wanted to leave his chest. No more talking; no more banter. Things were getting just a little too fucked up for that.

"Oh, don't worry." Kenmore pressed hard with the sharp thing in his hand, and it hurt this time; Evan didn't have to wonder if his skin was broken. "You will survive. For the most part."

Kenmore's eyes were so strange. Wrong. Not human.

"Do you heal as easily as your friend Sheppard? Are your sympathetic nerve responses as suppressed? Are you afraid, Evan?"

The pressure and sharp sting of pain left Evan's chest. He wondered distantly about Sheppard, all the things about him that were extraordinary -- things Evan, as extraordinary as he was in his own right, just couldn't measure up to. It made sense for Kenmore to want Sheppard, whose repertoire of abilities and superhuman quirks far outnumbered anyone Evan knew to be like them.

"I don't trust you to answer me honestly, of course." Kenmore dropped his instrument with a clang. "But the body doesn't lie."

Evan kept his mouth shut. He felt the sticky undersides of the electrodes being attached to his body, and ignored them. This was going to suck, he knew, and the only thing to do now was to find something else to think about. The beep and whir of monitors starting up made it hard to concentrate. Evan breathed deep and started mentally calling up the names of every teacher he'd ever had, starting with Ms. Bell in kindergarten.

He was up to sixth grade, Mr. Sales taught math and gave him detention for blowing spit balls at Hannah Gorman, when Kenmore's face hovered in his line of sight again.

"You are quiet," Kenmore remarked. "Not for long."

Evan closed his eyes to block out Kenmore's face and moved on to Mrs. Petrakis, the home ec. teacher with the awesome cleavage and the coolest car of any of his teachers. Mr. Li, biology--

And then Evan's body was on fire; if his eyes opened, he couldn't see and if he had any hope of remembering all those adults from so long ago, he had forgotten wanting to remember. He screamed. Kenmore spoke, but Evan didn't hear.

The room burned too bright, or maybe he was on fire. Evan screamed and screamed and screamed.  


* * *

  
While Rodney had been busily hunched over a keyboard, everyone else had been transforming a disorganized and unfamiliar group of people into a choreographed flurry of synchronized motion. Before he was fully aware that he was awake, Rodney had been fed scrambled eggs and toast, had a thermos of coffee shoved into his hand, and was hustled into a van. When he snapped out of it, Rodney realized he was sandwiched between Ronon the fire-breathing Philosophy major and Teyla, who Rodney hadn't quite figured out yet.

She was speaking to Ronon, but Rodney couldn't help but listen from his position.

"I do not know if he is alive," Teyla said as the van pulled away. "If he..."

"If Kenmore hurt him, we hurt Kenmore," Ronon told her. Teyla gave him a tight smile and a sharp nod.

Sheppard was in the seat behind them. He leaned forward, passing a map to Teyla which she smoothed open, using Rodney's lap as a table. He patted Teyla's arm awkwardly as he withdrew his hand.

With a blink, Rodney realized _this was happening_. He was on his way to a deserted research facility in -- wait --

"New Jersey? Newark? You're taking me to Newark?"

"Outside Newark," Ronon corrected. "I'm from New Jersey, you know."

"How nice for you," Rodney snapped. "We're all going to die."

"New Jersey isn't going to kill you, McKay."

Rodney twisted to glare at Sheppard over the back of the seat. "No, but you might."

"This is not a wise use of our time," Teyla interrupted.

Rodney righted himself in his seat, sending her a guilty look. "Fine, yes. So what's our plan?"

Teyla and Sheppard outlined their approach briskly as the car passed through the Lincoln Tunnel, Ronon chiming in with the occasional comment. It took every ounce of will power Rodney had not to scream that they were all certifiable. His role was perfectly acceptable to a point. He had already practiced the order a hundred times with Miko and Cadman over the course of the night. He could do it in the small window of time; It was what he had to do once security at the compound was sufficiently compromise that made him want to run away from these people as fast as his legs could carry him.

Ronon passed him a gun -- and actual gun -- and said, "If you know how to use it, use it. If you don't, try not to 'til you need it. Point at the bad guy, pull the trigger."

"I'm Canadian," Rodney reminded them. Ronon quirked an eyebrow at him. "So no, I don't know how to use it! We're a little less trigger-happy where I come from."

Sheppard's hand found Rodney's shoulder and squeezed. "Only if you need it then. You can do this."

"Right." Rodney forced himself not to rest his cheek against John's knuckles. "Yes. I can."

"Very good," Teyla said. She patted Rodney's hand and folded the map. "We should be there soon."  


* * *

  
"There" was an empty lot near the facility. John could see it, lit up with flood lights at its corners. The place was unremarkable from the outside. Their knowledge of what the inside would look like was limited to what they could glean from ten-year-old floor plans. John wasn't expecting it to be pleasant.

Their driver was a man whose name John hadn't had a chance to learn. He cut the engine and the headlights before craning his neck around. "You know what happens next?"

"We got it," John assured him. "McKay?"

"Right, right." Rodney hurried to open up his laptop and switch on the wireless equipment scattered over the van floor. "So we need video first, I think."

John watched Rodney's fingers move over the keys and mentally triangulated their position as it related to the other vans. They were north of the facility. There would be one van on the side of the road heading east, hazards flashing. Someone would be faking a tire change while Cadman and her team made their way through the field beside the building. Two more would be positioned at an access road to the south. Those were Teldy's team plus Carson and a few others with medical training. Two more to the west.

"I have video." Rodney snapped his fingers, drawing John's attention to the laptop screen. "Here's where we're going in --" at least four armed guards there, "Perimeter one, two, three, four --" two patrolling outside.

"Wait," John snapped before Rodney could switch views. Camera four was trained on the building's east side. The guard on duty was lit up by the flood light but there in the corner... "That's Kusanagi?"

"Who?" Rodney jerked to look at him.

"Miko," Teyla murmured. "Laura's team is in position."

"Miko?" Rodney scoffed, "What's she going to -- Oh! What --"

The guard was flat on his back, knocked out cold. Miko's shadowy figure was joined by three others.

"Miko is quite talented," Teyla said, a smile evident in her voice.

"She didn't touch him." John blinked hard. "I didn't see her touch him."

"Doesn't have to," Ronon muttered. "Energy pulse."

" _Cool_ ," John said, because it really was.

Rodney made a noise through his teeth. "It's always the quiet ones."

"Indeed," Teyla murmured. "Rodney, check the perimeter again."

The second guard, on the building's south side, was already flat. John couldn't see Cadman or her team, but he knew he could assume they were in position.

"McKay, check the stairwell cams, then get on the auto-lockdown systems."

"Right." Rodney flicked through the two remaining camera feeds -- no guards in the back stairwells -- before minimizing the video windows. "Before I crack the lockdown protocols, I'm infecting the surveillance files with false footage. A loop of old images will feed through. They'll probably catch it fast but it'll buy time."

"Nice," Ronon commented, slapping Rodney on the shoulder.

"Yeah." John grinned. "Pretty slick, McKay."

Rodney flushed red. "Yes, well."

 _Yeah, I tapped that,_ John thought, not a little hysterically. Rodney was already flying through disabling the lockdown protocol. Things were about to ramp up and fast.

"Okay," Rodney said on a gusty exhalation. "I'm going to cut power to the laboratories. Backup generators will keep the lights on but anything else won't run."

"Then we move." Ronon shifted, one hand on his sidearm and the other on the door handle. "Anyone not ready?"

"Me," Rodney replied without looking up from the laptop.

"Too bad," Ronon grunted.

"Done." Rodney shut the laptop. "So. We're going?"

"Yup." John adjusted his tac vest.

"Good luck," Teyla said. "To all of us."

Ronon threw the door open and they climbed out, heading for the facility in silence.  


* * *

  
Evan wouldn't have noticed if Kenmore hadn't moved away from him, but once he'd had a second to catch his breath, he noticed it. Faint tremors, the quiet ring of metal tools vibrating against each other. Kenmore had stepped out of Evan's sightline; his voice was low and clipped, but Evan couldn't figure out what he was saying. Kenmore's was the only voice he heard. Evan assumed he had a radio or phone.

Everything, all the parts of Evan's body, were hot with pain and tension. Kenmore had been working him over with every torture method in the book; Evan had been half-expecting the waterboarding to start next. So far, and Evan hadn't lost track yet, there had been the cutting, the electrocution, the heat, the cold, the noise and the light. The only constant had been the monitors, and even the beeps emitted from them were constantly changing.

The body didn't lie, and Evan was pretty messed up. The monitors reflected that, he figured; Kenmore seemed satisfied.

As Evan wrestled his lungs back under control, the heart rate monitor slowed its cadence, and the pain in his body started to become more specific. His arms were killing him, his cuts were stinging, his head was pounding and his mouth was dry. For a second Evan thought maybe the tremors were coming from _him_ , but then why would the tray of scalpels and calipers rattle? Why would the IV bag on its stand be rolling slightly, sneaking into Evan's peripheral vision?

"Stop them," Evan heard Kenmore snap, followed by the click of a handset falling back into its receiver.

 _Yes,_ Evan thought. His friends were here. Everything was going to be fine.

"Do not get your hopes up, Mr. Lorne." Kenmore's face loomed grey and veiny over his.

Evan didn't try to talk back; he'd bitten his tongue hours ago; it was too swollen and the pain wouldn't be worth the witty repartee.

"Your friends have done exactly what was expected; I will have Sheppard, and you, perhaps even a couple of Elizabeth Weir's misfit toys." Kenmore tapped Evan's cheek in a mockery of affection. "You have served your purpose."

Then, before Evan could open his mouth to say something smart-mouthed and probably ill-advised, the lights went off and the monitors were silent.  


* * *

  
The ground rumbled under their feet as they drew up to the building's main entrance. Rodney reached out and grabbed an elbow -- John's, though anyone's would have done at that moment -- to steady himself.

"That's Cadman," Ronon told them, and a rising dust cloud originating from the back side of the building confirmed it.

"She scares me," Rodney said. "More than any of this, Cadman freaks me out."

"I think she's awesome," John said, winking and jostling Rodney's side with the elbow he was still clutching.

"You would," Rodney replied, but his heart wasn't in it. They were at the doors now, which Rodney knew were unlocked because he had made damn sure they would be.

"Keep your gun ready."

Rodney nodded. John had shown him how to turn to safety off, how to load a clip, how to get a good grip on it. He was in no way ready to actually shoot the thing, but Rodney had his hand on it, sweaty and clammy against the cold metal. "Let's just do this."

Teyla reached for the door; Ronon kicked it in.  


* * *

  
There were guards. Rodney squeaked and drew his gun, but two of the guys were on the ground, dispatched by Sheppard and Ronon's flying fists. Teyla had been right next to Rodney, directly to his left; she was gone. "What --" Rodney looked left to right quickly. "Teyla?"

"Here, Rodney!" She was all the way at the other end of the long, stretching main hall, taking out two of Kenmore's men at once. Once they were laid out, Teyla disappeared or no -- Rodney was paying attention now, and she didn't disappear, she -- she was next to Rodney again.

"Damn, you're fast," John said.

Teyla gave him a brief smile, then bent to pick up the weapon she had knocked from the hand of one of the guards. "I have never seen a gun like this. No chamber for bullets."

"Let's not test it out," Rodney said hastily.

There was a roar, and more ground-shaking. "Cadman's taking out the side exits," Ronon said. "We gotta move."

There were noises coming from above and below them and from all sides. The facility consisted of four main floors, a basement and a sub-basement. A klaxon blared somewhere, and the sound of doors being flung open echoed throughout, but no one appeared in the main hall or vestibule. The main lights were out, but secondary power had emergency spots running at the corners of the hall. The spotlights cast eerie shadows over the fallen guards. Rodney shuddered.

"We're going a level down," John said. "Move."

The southeast stairwells would take them down to the first basement, where the most spacious labs were located. It was a straight shot back and a quick left, and the four of them made it to the turn without hassle, but rounding the corner brought them up short.

"Hello, friends."

"Lucius," Sheppard growled. "Step aside."

Lucius, appearing for all the world as though he was welcoming them to a tea party. "But you haven't met my friends. Oh, boys!"

Feet pounded down the stairs and a phalanx of guards wielding the gun-like weapons appeared at Lucius' back.

"Shit, shit, shit," Rodney muttered under his breath, fighting to keep his hand steady and his gun pointed.

"Don't test me, Lavin." Sheppard motioned with his gun. "Get rid of them."

"Or?" Lucius smiled pleasantly. "John, you can make this difficult or you can follow us --"

More rumbling, louder than ever before, interrupted that sentence, and without even a crash, the back wall disintegrated. Lucius' guards scattered and most were taken out with a flick of Miko's hand as she and the rest of Cadman's team poured in.

"Hi, guys!" Cadman waved while Miko took care of the rest of the guards. She was talking into a headset, presumably communicating with C Team one level up. She gestured to Cadman and jerked her head in the direction of the second stairwell.

"Okay, gotta go!" Cadman waved again and they ran off with their team.

Rodney nearly let hysterics take over, but found himself comforted by the gobsmacked look on Lucius' face. The look disappeared fast, and Lucius narrowed his eyes at Rodney. It was a near thing, but Rodney didn't flinch. He realized a split second before it started that Lucius was going to try to get into his head -- he had no way of knowing that Rodney's gene had been activated, so he couldn't know it wouldn't work this time.

Rodney did flinch when it started, a full-body jerk of surprise because hey -- wow. He could see it this time. The first time, when Lucius succeeded in getting into Rodney's head, it had felt like long, prickly fingers reaching in and getting their stickers in the fibers of his brain. It had been like static cling of the mind, making Rodney's body feel wrapped in muzzy sensation, an entity he couldn't control. He couldn't have fought if he tried.

That was then.

Now Rodney saw Lucius' sticky fingers, a dark mass of _wrong_ hanging between them, but stopping just short of Rodney's personal bubble.

Lucius looked frustrated now, and Rodney flicked his eyes down from where all that control was hanging, inert.

"Nice try," Rodney snapped. Then, sure as he had been born to do it, he reached out too. He couldn't see anything; there was no manifestation of what Rodney was doing other than the sudden, frantic vibration of Lucius' power as it fought against Rodney's. Rodney didn't take his eyes off Lucius' face, so full of confusion and frustration, as he _pushed_ , hard, and sent the fingered cloud of power back on its owner.

Lucius' face flickered recognition before it twisted in pain. It had been a handful of moments, Rodney realized, since he began shoving against Lucius' mind, and the others were just now catching on.

"Are you --" John reached for Rodney's arm, but halted his hand's progress when Rodney cut his eyes over and jerked his head -- _No, don't touch. Busy._

"How --" Lucius doubled over groaning, unable to speak. That's when Rodney remembered he might be able to hear this, too. He opened up, feeling it like a bloom in the back of his skull.

He couldn't hear words, only a high-pitched squeal like metal-on-metal. Rodney held tight and reached, like he had tried with Sheppard less than a day before. This time, instead of nothing, Rodney hit real resistance he could feel like hands on his chest. This time, instead of backing down, Rodney got in. He wasn't sure when he'd started reaching with his actual, physical hands, but when Rodney's head filled with Lucius' anguished screams he realized he had somehow tackled the man to the ground. No one was pulling him off and Rodney knew they couldn't if they tried. Something was _happening_ , in Rodney's head, in Lucius' head. Rodney was in, he was there and sure as he could reach out and grab Lucius by the throat if he wanted, he was reaching out and getting a solid grip on the mass of power locked up in Lucius' twisted head.

Oh, it was twisted. Rodney ignored it, _had to_ , in order to concentrate. It felt like years of work, or hours of running in scorching heat, or a minute with no air. And then Rodney yanked, punched Lucius soundly in the face, and scrambled off him.

He had done it. Maybe. He had ripped something right out of Lucius' head. Not his power but its lynch pin. Something.

"McKay," John snapped from behind him. "What the _fuck_?"  


* * *

  
They left Lucius crumpled on the floor, alive but knocked out and grey in the face. They moved swiftly down toward the basement, McKay chattering away as they went.

"I think I ripped his _brain_ , you guys! Guys? Seriously! I think I did!"

John couldn't help a huffy laugh. "Okay, Rodney, we get it."

At the bottom of the stairs, the four of them froze, knowing what happened next. Rodney clammed up.

"Okay." John gripped his gun tight and wiped his other hand on his pants. "Teyla and Rodney, you're going after Lorne and Zelenka, and anyone else you can find. Ronon --"

"I'm burning stuff."

"Yeah." John nodded. "Good. Okay. Radios set to channel two?"

They all nodded, and that was the cue for all of them to start moving. No one budged.

The blueprints had shown a large, centrally located space not far from the access door. John was headed there in hopes of stumbling on Kenmore or at least some sign of what he might be up to. Left from the door was a stretch of smaller labs. Rodney's rampage through the building's security files had revealed that most of them had been fitted with locking mechanisms accessible through a master system or outer panels. Those seemed like the best place to start if they were going to find Lorne, Zelenka, or any of the recently snatched gene carriers.

They had been standing in front of the door for a beat too long. Teyla cleared her throat.

"Good luck," she said, placing a hand on John's arm. "Be careful."

"He'll be careful." Rodney glared at him. "Won't you?"

"Yes." John nodded and smiled his best don't-you-trust-me smile. "Always."

Teyla's mouth twisted, resisting a smile. She seemed to enjoy them, John thought. He liked Teyla. When this was over, he planned on getting to know her better. Ronon too.

Ronon nudged John with his elbow. "We going?"  


* * *

  
The basement was better lit than the first floor. Whatever secondary systems Kenmore had in place were obviously mainly routed to the lower floors. Bulbs hidden between the walls and ceiling cast greenish light over the place. The walls themselves were a sight, covered as they were in patches by a weird, squishy material. John allowed himself a second's curiosity and touched the stuff.

"What the hell," he murmured. Beside him Ronon grunted and pressed a flaming finger to the wall. The material melted away. "Um, okay --"

"Just checking," Ronon said. He slapped John on the shoulder and took off down one of the three branching hallways.

John looked around and realized McKay and Teyla were already gone, down the left hall as per the plan. Giving himself a mental shake, John took the first steps down his assigned route, heading for the big double doors at the end of hallway number three.

He made it past three doors before one further down swung open and an improbably large group of men dressed in the guard uniforms poured out. "Shit," John muttered, and started backing up, ducking into a little off-shoot hallway that lead to a dead end and a supply closet.

It had been stressed over and over again that the guards would be men and women Lucius and Kenmore had picked up. Some of them might be acolytes to their "cause" but it was likely most of them were innocent people being controlled by Lucius. Shooting to kill wasn't much of an option.

John got his grip tight on his gun anyway. If he had to, he'd take them out at the knees and let Carson sort them out later. The footfalls of the guards were coming closer and closer to where John stood. He pressed his back to the wall and inched closer to the corner. It gave him a partial view of the hall facing away from the guards, and kept them from catching sight of him. John could almost smell the first guard, he was so close, and he was just getting ready to turn out into the main hall, his only plan involving hitting a whole bunch of people, when something down the hall exploded.

There were shouts of suprise, then orders, and the group of guards -- John counted about a dozen as they streamed by -- took off toward the smoke and flames. Two of the guys at the back of the group noticed him at the last second and turned. John registered the glaze of their eyes just before he knocked them out cold. None of the others noticed the fallen men. John backed into the hallway a step, catching his breath and mentally thanking Ronon for whatever he'd done to create the distraction.

He needed to get back out there, make the right into the main hall and head for those doors. Kenmore might not be there, but John would bet money one of his big projects would be. John steeled himself and went, paying no attention to the smoke choking the air. He heard Ronon's voice and the electric sound of the stun guns the guards carried, but didn't turn around. John made it to the double doors just as an explosion shook the building.

McKay's disruption of the lockdown protocols seemed to be working, because the door opened easily. John slipped inside and let it click shut behind him. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the lower light in the room. Once it did, he hurried off the wall.

"Lorne," John said, too quietly. The figure lying strapped to a metal table didn't move. "Lorne!"

Lorne's body jerked and he coughed a little before he spoke. "Sheppard?"

"Yeah." John made it to the table and gaped down at Lorne's shirtless body. "You're a god damn mess, Lorne."

"I know," Lorne rasped. "Mind getting me off this thing?"

John rushed to do as asked, yanking sticky electrodes off red, irritated skin and pulling at the buckles of straps. The metal half-circle holding Lorne's head in place gave him some trouble. While he searched for the catch, he said "You gonna live?"

"Definitely," Lorne replied, probably less sure than he meant to sound. "Let's just get the hell out of here before Kenmore gets back."

"I'm with you there," John said. His fingers found the button that released the head restraint. "Can you sit up? What exactly was Kenmore doing, using you as a voodoo doll?"

"I don't know what he thought he was getting out of me. Says he was running a stress test. Well, I'm stressed. Goal met." Lorne struggled to sit up, using John's shoulder to lever himself off the table.

Lorne did manage to stay upright once John hauled him up. He ripped an IV line out of his arm and swung his legs over the side of the table. "He's a lunatic, just so we're all on the same page."

"Yeah, I figured."

Lorne snorted. "He thinks he can get together an army of us."

"Oh." John grinned. "Well I guess you could say he did. He'll be pretty disappointed the army came to kick his ass."

"Sheppard, did you start an army without me?"

John laughed and patted Lorne's shoulder instead of slapping it. "Not exactly. Let's move. Do you know where he's keeping Zelenka? Or anyone else?"

Lorne shook his head. "No. I've been knocked out whenever he's moved me. Radek was okay last time I saw him. Are there many others?"

"We don't know," John said. "Can you move?"

"Slowly, yeah."

"Great." John offered Lorne a shoulder to lean on while he got down off the table. They made the first wobbling steps toward the door. John was optimistic; they were slow, which might be a problem, but now he had Lorne and his brain to help deal with anything that might crop up. This was going to work, they were getting out and then they were finding Kenmore and finishing this.

It would figure that the minute John let himself get a couple positive affirmations in, the doors would bang open, letting in a knot of guards.

"They have stun guns," Lorne said quickly. "That's how they got us in the first place."

"Damn," John muttered. "Gotta let go now."

He moved out from under Lorne's shoulder. Lorne listed to the side but caught himself on a wall. Trays of medical instruments went flying at the guards, knocking a couple out cold before John could even draw his weapon. He got his gun out and raised it at the nearest standing guard.

"Stop."

John jerked at the voice behind him. He turned and saw Kenmore, shadowed in a corner, the greenish light of a hallway spilling in behind him. Another door, one not on the plans, then. John wanted very badly to shoot the guy and be done with it.

"Mr. Sheppard," Kenmore smiled. "Come with me."

John flicked his eyes over to Lorne, who was looking ragged but had the guards distracted by the door, which appeared to be trying to beat at their faces. It would slam shut if they weren't in the way, and if the one who had been put down by the flying trays weren't lying in its path.

"I could call them off," Kenmore said interrupting John's assessment of available options. "Your friend will remain safe if you simply walk with me."

"Or I could shoot you right now," John snapped, leveling his weapon at Kenmore's head.

"You could," Kenmore agreed. "But if you think I haven't given orders in advance to destroy this facility should I die, you are sorely mistaken. Come with me, Sheppard, or this place comes down around your ears."

John took off the radio in his ear, switching it on and tossing it to Lorne. "Call for Cadman and Kusanagi," he said.

Lorne nodded, catching the radio easily. John turned away from him, feeling in his bones how wrong it was to leave one of his own behind, grasping for another option and coming up empty.

"Okay," he said, throwing out his arms, still holding his gun in hand. "Let's go."

Kenmore smiled at him. "Leave the gun."

John placed it on the floor, kicking it over to Lorne. "You know your guards are basically useless, don't you?"

Kenmore shrugged. "I am less than concerned for the welfare of a handful of weak men. Come."

John followed Kenmore out the back door and into the green-lit hallway. This one was quiet. No smoke, either. In fact, it wasn't much of a hall; it was just an alcove, and directly to the left was an elevator. Kenmore pressed the button and gestured for John to get in when the doors slid open.

"Something tells me you're not taking me to the room with the flavored wallpaper," John said, once they were both in and Kenmore had pressed the single button to take them down.

"I don't understand the reference," Kenmore replied. "I wish only to speak with you, Mr. Sheppard. We are going to my personal labs."

"Great," John said. "This'll be a good talk."

"Yes."

John wished Kenmore would stop smiling at him. Now that he had a second to really look, John realized how different Kenmore looked. "Jeez, what the hell happened to you?"

Kenmore shrugged one shoulder. "Some experiments didn't go as planned."

"And you what? Tried to turn yourself into a zombie and got halfway there?"

"Oh, Sheppard." Kenmore shook his head. The elevator doors opened on the sub-basement. "You simply don't understand. But you will."

Kenmore stepped out of the elevator and John followed. His breath caught in his chest. None of this had been in the building plans. The sub-level appeared to go down for another story or so, their feet resting on a mere catwalk running the perimeter, metal steps leading down into a cluttered space full of things John couldn't identify.

A metallic hum hit John as the elevator closed behind him. There were shelves of strange weapons, odd-shaped consoles, glowing screens. Down in the pit below was a chair, metal and cold. John felt the inexplicable urge to sit in it.

"What is this?" he demanded.

Kenmore placed a hand on John's shoulder. "I will tell you everything, and once I have, you will do anything to help me. I promise."

Kenmore led John down into the pit and John, though he knew someone would come find him -- hopefully soon -- highly doubted he would have the option to say no to whatever Kenmore asked him. As the need to reach out and touch the things around him grew stronger, John wasn't sure he would want to.  


* * *

  
Not long after the building started shaking, Radek heard Rodney's voice.. Wherever he was, Radek couldn't hear what was causing the building to tremble, but could feel it well enough. When it had begun, he had fervently hoped whatever it was meant that he was being rescued. The sound of Rodney's voice, high with panic, seemed a confirmation of that hope.

Radek shuffled over to the webby door and shouted, "McKay? Rodney!"

He placed his hands on the spongy webbing and, to his surprise, the door slid aside. Radek blinked at where the door had been. "You're jokiing," he murmured, then figuring it would be in his best interests to worry about these things later, rushed out of the cell.

"Radek!"

Radek turned left, then right, and found Rodney hurrying down the hall, accompanied by a woman Radek didn't recognize. "Rodney, thank God!"

"Hey!" Rodney reached him and immediately started patting at Radek's torso, checking for injuries. "Are you alright?"

Radek slapped at his roommate's hands. "I'm fine, Rodney, stop that."

"Where's Lorne?"

"They have taken him." Radek shook his head. "Maybe a few hours ago, maybe longer. I don't know where. Hello." He raised a hand in greeting to the woman.

She nodded. "Teyla Emmagan. We will have to be properly introduced later. Quickly, other than yourself and Lorne, were there any other prisoners?"

"Prisoners?" Radek shook his head. "Not that I know of."

"There are other rooms along this hall," Teyla said. "We should check them."

"Right," Rodney jerked his hands away from Radek's shoulders. "Yes."

Radek smiled and patted his friend's shoulder. "Thank you, Rodney."

"Well," Rodney flushed and shrugged his shoulders. "I can't stand the thought of breaking in another roommate."

"Of course," Radek said. He felt his smile stretch wider. Rodney rolled his eyes at him and started to follow Teyla down the hall. Radek looked over his shoulder, down the other end of the hall. Smoke was pouring from somewhere far away. "Perhaps while we take a look around you could maybe...fill me in?"

Rodney snorted and started explaining, gesturing with his hands -- one of which was clutching a gun, to Radek's extreme alarm -- and Teyla started opening doors.  


* * *

  
"So basically, we're ripping it apart," Rodney finished. Next to him, Radek made a hmm-ing sound and pulled aside yet another webbed door. "Any idea what this stuff is ?"

Radek shrugged. "Organic compound of some kind. You didn't find reference to it in Kenmore's files?"

"We didn't find references to much of anything," Rodney replied. "If he has a database detailing his projects, it's not on a server I could locate."

Ahead of them, Teyla made a frustrated noise. Rodney blinked, surprised. Up until now, Teyla projected a bubble of cool, calm collectedness. He was pretty sure she hadn't even broken a sweat since they arrived in the compound. "Teyla?"

"This is the last room and there is no one," Teyla said sharply. "Where is he keeping them?"

"John said the guards --"

"I am aware of that possibility," Teyla snapped. She took a deep breath. "I apologize. I'm worried about Kanaan."

Radek raised an eyebrow and Rodney said, low so Teyla wouldn't hear. "Her husband is missing."

"What is this about the guards?"

Rodney sighed. "Some of them are probably being controlled, or I guess brainwashed is more accurate, by Lucius."

"And this Kanaan, he has powers?"

"No," Teyla said shortly. "He was... _is_ just a way for Lucius and Michael to get to me."

"We'll find him," Rodney said, knowing he was failing miserably at sounding sure about that.

"Yes." Teyla nodded. "We should look for John. He may have been able to locate Lorne."

"Or Kenmore," Rodney added. "Okay. Radek?"

"What? Like I'm going to go back into my cell? Yes, let's go."

Rodney breathed deep, searching for some of the bravado he had randomly accessed the night before, and coming up with nothing but mind-numbing fear at the prospect of leaving the hallway. He tightened his hand on the gun, not knowing why something so foreign and terrifying was such a comfort. Teyla motioned for them to follow, and started down the hall.  


* * *

  
"Where did all of this come from?" John asked, turning to take in the strange contraptions around him.

"That," Kenmore said "is what I am about to tell you. Please, sit."

John glanced at the heavy-looking metal chair. "In that?"

Kenmore nodded. John knew he shouldn't. A voice in the back of his head screamed at him _Don't touch anything!_ But he wanted to. That chair wanted him to sit in it.

It was a weird thought, John knew that, but for some reason he couldn't make himself stop; he sat in the chair. The moment his hands rested on the arms, the chair seemed to come to life, lighting up and tilting back. "What --"

"Very good," Kenmore murmured. "Just as I thought. No one else has been able to --"

Coming back to himself now that the urge to touch the chair had been satisfied, John started to sit up. Kenmore pushed him back down.

"No, please. Stay."

John stayed, only because it seemed Kenmore was ramping up to something, maybe an explanation, and John really needed to know what the hell all this was, why he desperately wanted to touch all of it _right now_.

"A very long time ago," Kenmore began. "There were people from another place. Another galaxy, in fact." He motioned with one hand. "All of this belonged to them. It has taken me years to understand it, but thanks to you and gifted people like you, the last piece of the puzzle is in my hands."

John twitched a little, his hands jittering against the chair's armrests.

"These people were advanced beyond our wildest fantasies," Kenmore continued. "They came here and seeded our galaxy with life. Can you guess, Mr. Sheppard, what was special about them, other than technological advancement?"

John kept his mouth shut, tracking Kenmore with his eyes. He was moving back and forth in front of the chair. Now he stopped, looked at John and shook his head.

"You know what I'm talking about, Sheppard. They were like you. They were... special. Of course, over time a few found their way to Earth. Bloodlines mixed. These special people bred with humans on this planet. As you can probably guess, the special qualities faded out over time. Except where they didn't."

"What are you saying, Kenmore?" John spoke, finally. "This sounds like a comic book story, not real life."

"You are going to argue realism with me?" Kenmore scoffed, "Please. You can fly, Mr. Sheppard. Think, won't you, about how you came to be this way. It's genetic, you know this already. And now you know, because I just told you, where that gene comes from."

"Fine. I believe you. Now explain all these --" John waved a hand around the room. "-- things."

"I'm getting to that." Kenmore stopped pacing again. "Have you ever wondered why you have more abilities than your two gifted friends?"

"No."

"Never? Well, consider this: Before today no one who has sat in that chair has activated it -- you did. I have a theory that your expression of this gene is stronger than others."

"And?" John gripped the armrests now, regretting giving up his gun.

"And, I intend to make use of that." Kenmore walked away, picking up a square device. "These technologies had to be turned on for me, you see. Luckily I was able to find a few individuals to act as...let's call them lightswitches. This is a computer, and this --" Kenmore took a square of glass out of his pocket, "Is a disk, of sorts."

John ground his teeth together to keep from reacting. He had seen glass like that before.

"On this little bit of crystal is all my research, all the information I could find about people like you, and items such as the ones you see around you. At first, my goal was to use certain medical technology to create a therapy which would provide me with the gene."

"Didn't work, I'm guessing."

"No," Kenmore said, his lecture tone shifting to chilly. "It did not. However, I found some interesting DNA samples, amazingly preserved. You would not believe these creatures -- humanoid, yes, but certainly not merely _human_. My research indicates an evolutionary transformation originating with the most interesting insect. I won't bore you with the details."

"Too late," John muttered.

Kenmore's eyes narrowed. "I attempted to use the technology to integrate these DNA types with my own. I fear the technology is missing key components."

From above, someone shouted "That explains the face, then!"

John twisted in the chair and looked up. Everyone was there, lined up along the catwalk above the pit of alien technology. John hadn't heard them. That had been happening to him a lot; he'd been a little distracted these days.

Kenmore seemed taken aback by the sheer number of them, standing up there with their elbows on the railing. He recovered quickly, pocketing his crystal-disk thing and setting the alien computer down.

"I see you brought friends," he murmured.

John finally got up and out of the chair. "I like a party."

"We're not finished here." Kenmore got close, right up in John's face. "In fact, perhaps your friends want to hear the rest. They can all help. We can do a great many impressive things with that chair and the items in this room."

"You're talking about more than just light tricks, aren't you?" John forced himself not to take a step back. "You have weapons here, but you can't operate them."

"But I can," Kenmore whispered. "Look at all the lightswitches you've brought me. Lucius will --"

"Lucius is done."

That was McKay. John allowed his gaze to flick up, catching Rodney's gaze. He gave Rodney a short nod, trying to communicate some reassurance. When he brought his eyes back down to Kenmore, he was met with a fist to the face. It took John by surprise. He stumbled back with the force of it, looking down just for a split second. Feet pounded down the steps. When John looked up Kenmore was gone, and Teyla was tearing after him through a door John hadn't noticed before.

"I am really off my game, I think."

A hand clapped him on the shoulder. "No worries, boss," Lorne said. "What do we do now?"

John looked around at their faces, all waiting for him to make a decision and -- whoa -- that was different. "Uh...Okay. Ronon, McKay, we're going after Teyla."

Ronon nodded and nudged McKay towards the door.

John rubbed at his aching jaw. "Lorne, get as much of this stuff out of here as you can. Touch as little as possible. Everyone else do what you can to help."

Lorne, though he looked ready to fall over, just nodded and started looking around for a place to start. Miko hurried to his side and started making suggestions, pointing every which way while Lorne started sorting them, sending crates and entire tables sliding across the room.

John turned, looking for Cadman's head in the crowd. He was relieved to find her already circling the chair. "Destroy that."

"What?" Cadman looked between him and the chair. "Are you sure?"

"Whatever it does is dangerous. Get rid of it." John turned to where Rodney and Ronon were waiting. "You two ready?"

"Yep." Ronon turned and headed out.

Rodney was fidgeting nervously, but he nodded and gestured for John to go first. On impulse, John touched his shoulder as he passed, squeezing that tense muscle he remembered from the night before. "You're doing good, Rodney."

"Let's just do this," Rodney muttered, following John through the door.  


* * *

  
The door led to a staircase, yet another thing not present on the plans.

"He really renovated the place," Rodney panted as they thundered up the steps.

They took turns, whoever reached the next landing first kicking open the door and checking for signs of Kenmore or Teyla. Rodney stuck close to John, reaching out once to grab the back of his shirt when they paused by a door. John glanced back and shot him a half-smile that was probably supposed to make Rodney think none of this was bizarre or terrifying.

"This is all completely bizarre," Rodney informed him. "And also terrifying."

John shrugged, starting up the next staircase. "But what can you do?"

Rodney snorted and kept on following.

They ended up on the roof. "Seriously," Rodney panted while Ronon was kicking the door in -- totally unnecessary but showy and dramatic nonetheless -- "I spend so much time on rooftops lately."

"You get used to it," John told him, and they made it through the door just in time to see Teyla and Kenmore beating the hell out of each other dangerously close to the roof's edge.

John started forward, but Ronon's hand shot out to stop him. "Leave her," he said. "Teyla can take care of herself and she needs to do it."

"Do what?" John demanded.

Rodney cleared his throat. "We found Kanaan. He's... Carson's not sure if he'll get better."

John turned to look at him and spoke slowly. "Okay, and what? We let Teyla pulverize him?"

"What Michael did -- " Ronon shook his head. "He was a friend, once. Found out about Teyla's gene when she was pregnant with Torren. He tried to --"

"Enough said." John had gone tight around the mouth. "She's --"

There was a shout and a crunch, drawing their attention back to the edge of the rooftop, where Michael, nose and mouth bloody, flailed for a fleeting moment before falling back and off the side.

Rodney's breath froze in his lungs, because he knew what was happening, and without wanting to, he heard Kenmore's thoughts.

_Wait, Teyla -- Help -- Please, Teyla, no -- No, no, no --_

And he knew, because he heard Teyla think it, and Ronon think it, that Teyla was fast enough to stop it happening. But she didn't, and Kenmore went over. Teyla stood at the edge, staring down to the bottom long after the sickening sound of Kenmore's body meeting pavement echoed up. Ronon nodded, and John seemed to take that as permission to move now, so Rodney did too though his body still felt frozen.

There was a fine crystalline dust under the heel of Teyla's boot. She dragged her foot through it as she turned to them.

"I --" she blinked and shook her head. "I need to see Kanaan. Please."

"I'll take you." Ronon reached out and scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing. "I'll take you."

"I'm perfectly capable -- "

"Teyla," Ronon murmured. "You won't make it down the steps."

He went off with her, leaving John and Rodney to stare at each other. Teyla had killed someone.

"One of Elizabeth's -- I mean, one of ours -- is dead." Rodney rubbed at his eyes. There was a fine layer of grit covering his hand, which he was probably smearing all over his face now. "I just remembered."

"Anyone I've met?" John grabbed Rodney's hand, rubbing at the dirt on his knuckles. John's hands were dirty too, streaked with particles of destroyed walls, smoke residue from the fires Ronon had set, and rust colored stains Rodney figured were someone's blood.

"No, one of the others Kenmore took. Grodin?"

"What happened?"

"Nothing, tonight." Rodney pulled his hand gently away, shoving it into his pocket to hide the shaking. "He was in a cell. Starved to death, Carson thinks."

"Damn it," John growled. "I can't --"

"Yeah, well." Rodney shook his head. "We need to get out of here before we deal with that. I saw the body, it was -- just let's get the hell out of here."  


* * *

  
The sun was beginning to rise by the time they finally got out, everyone laden down with boxes full of Michael's scavenged alien tech. Teyla was sitting on the back bumper of a van next to a man in guard uniform. He looked gaunt and half-awake, but more than half-alive. From the side of another guard laid out between the vans, Carson looked up and caught John's eye. He smiled and tilted his head. John caught the sentiment: _Could've been worse._

Ronon walked ahead, leaving John and Rodney each with a hard, back-cracking one-armed hug. John stopped to watch him speaking quietly with Teyla and the man John figured was Kanaan.

"I like them," Rodney said from his place at John's shoulder. "They're. Well, nice isn't the word."

"They're good people to have on your side," John supplied.

Rodney huffed a breath and pressed his shoulder more firmly to John's. "Yeah."

"So," John waved an arm at the boxes being loaded into vans. More were pulling up by the minute. Elizabeth climbed out of one, springing into action, stopping people to ask questions. "What do you think about all that stuff?"

"Well," Rodney shrugged. "I kind of know what some of it is. Probably a good idea, destroying that weapons chair."

John felt his eyebrows hit his hairline. "What do you mean, you know what some of it is? Weapons chair?"

Rodney cleared his throat. "Remember how I worked at Area 51 before I pissed off the government?"

"You're kidding."

"Well, they didn't know what it was! I mean, I didn't! But now -- _oh_." Rodney's eyes lit up like Christmas. "We're going to keep it, right? John, right?"

John couldn't help an indulgent smile. He shrugged. "You'll have to talk to Elizabeth."

"Right!" Rodney rubbed his hands together and turned to intercept Elizabeth.

John shot out a hand, grabbing Rodney just above the elbow before he could get too far. "McKay."

Rodney turned around, impatience written on his face. "What --"

John laughed, just a little, and reeled him in close. "You go get your shiny toys. Later, we need to... talk."

"Talk?" Rodney squeaked, already leaning in. "Yes, okay."

"Okay." John closed the distance and pressed a chaste kiss to Rodney's upturned mouth before letting him go with a sharp slap to the ass. "Go."

"Right," Rodney said, flushing deep red. "Shiny toys now. You and the -- later."

John watched him go, but turned away as soon as the handwaving started directly under Elizabeth's nose.

The sun was almost up now. In this light, the damage to the compound was obvious. Sections of exterior wall were plainly missing, and smoke rose up from the rubble. Lucius was being corralled by about ten people. He was wandering aimlessly around the building's perimeter, chatting along endlessly and looking distinctly out of it.

John turned his back on that and found Rodney next to a practically vibrating Radek, grinning ear to ear, giving John a thumbs up. Teyla with Kanaan, Ronon loading them into a van. Carson bustling around taking care of everyone.

Lorne appeared at John's side. "What do you think, sir?"

John slung a friendly arm over Lorne's shoulders, prompting a bewildered look.

"Sheppard?"

John gave Lorne's shoulders a squeeze. "It's gonna be a good day. Don't you think?"

**Author's Note:**

> This story never would have happened without the encouragement of gblvr, who pounced on the idea and demanded I write it.
> 
> It never would have been finished without the hard work and dedication of kate, the best beta there ever was, who toiled with me over rewrites and "Say What?" moments.
> 
> Many, many thanks to you both for the read throughs, cheerleading and advice.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mightier Still (Cover art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/119394) by [Korilian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Korilian/pseuds/Korilian)




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